Questions from a civilian.

Hi as some background I’m northern England based and politically fit into the category of the sort of person who wishes taxes and government spending was a bit lower. Not a big fan of the camera vans either to be honest…

Having said this as a context I look at the news and have dug with some interest of the past couple months and am constantly amazed we still have anything resembling a functional police force. In the last few weeks for example I have seen storeys regarding:

Minimal police pay rises and worse/no rights to strike vs the rest of the public sector.

Officers fired over the most minimal upsets, often involving non criminal but bad optics circumstances from when they were students etc.

No real officer discretion to account for reality in modern policing but instead hard policy and internal hostile cultures.

Is it this bad? I have a nephew who is still in a level but has always been very interested. Is it that hostile a work environment and should I be dissuading him?

Real world perspectives would be very interesting to hear.