The target culture and the police

The Telegraph reports in a somewhat surprised tone that:

"Police are targeting the law-abiding middle classes over minor misdemeanours so they can meet government targets, a report claims.

Officers are having to put Home Office targets before serving the public and are becoming increasingly alienated from ordinary people as a result.

The public find officers to be "rude" and accuse them of neglecting their duties and failing to respond to reports of crime.

The report, by the think-tank Civitas, said political interference meant incidents that might previously have been regarded as innocuous were now treated as crimes. "

Of course those of us who have read PC David Copperfield's excellent blog and book over recent years have long known of this phenomenon. This is the price we must all pay for the Labour government's obsession with measuring performance; the measures chosen affect the activities of those being measured and not always in the ways expected.