Police Patrol Time

Bag's Rants points to an interesting article about the British police-

There are 143,000 [police officers]. However out of that only 81,877 of them actually go out on patrol. That is just over 57%. Now out of each of those on patrol it seems that patrol time equates to one hour per shift.

And what do they do when they are out?

Now from experience whenever I see any police they are out with their snazzy new radar equipment clamping down on the real criminals in our society. The drivers.

And we wonder why crime is out of control and the public does not support the police.

I'll second that- I hardly ever see any police out and about. Occasionally you'll see a few wandering through the local shopping centre but apart from that they are rarely seen. The last time I saw a police officer on foot in my local village was last summer. Since the weather worsened however, they haven't been around. An odd coincidence I'm sure.