why do the police treat crime victims like shit?

I wonder if this experience is common to many people: you're the
victim of a crime, and as such you're very upset, so you seek help
from the police, but the way the police treat you actually makes you
feel _far worse_ that the criminal made you feel.

This has been my own experience on more than one occasion, and I'd
like to talk about the latest one. I don't really expect advice - it's
just a rant, to get things off my chest and help me feel better. I
apologise if it's a bit rambling and incoherent - even now, a couple
of days later, I'm really upset about it.

I'm a man in his early fifties, who has always tried to lead a decent
life. I've never been in any trouble with the police, so my contact
with them until recent years has been almost non-existent. I was
raised at a time when we were all brought up by our parents to respect
the police, and so for most of my life I've always been quick to
defend them. My attitude, like that of many ordinary people, has been
"they may have a few rotten apples, but on the whole they do a good
job, and if they don't help you as much as you'd like them to do, it's
only because they're overworked, or because the legal system protects
the criminal so much that their hands are tied".

In the past two years or so my attitude has suffered a dramatic
change. More than once I've seen a couple of officers out of my home,
shut the door behind them and immediately wanted to scream "God, how I
hate those bastards!" The last time this happened was a couple of days
ago.

The background to this is as follows. After living a quiet life in a
respectable street of private housing, I was offered a council flat,
on what seemed to be a nice estate. I jumped at the chance, as I was
getting sick of the uncertainty of six-month tenancies, but almost
from the outset, I began to get a lot of trouble from youths in the
neighbourhood, who'd shout obscenities and throw stones at me.

These youths capitalised on the fact that I didn't know who they were
or where they lived, and there never seemed to be an adult around to
help me identify them. I was depending on the police to find out who
these people were, so every time I rang them I'd say "they're still
hanging around - come now and I can point them out to you". But
typically, they'd turn up the next day, so I could only give them a
vague description, and so nothing would happen. It took well over a
year for anyone to be approached by the police, mainly due to stuff
I'd found out by myself.

The latest incident happened a couple of days ago, but one of the
culprits was a youth who is already being dealt with by the police. I
thought "great - if they police question him, he might tell them who
the others are" (he had told on his mates once in the past). And so I
rang the police, thinking - foolishly, by this time - that they'd be
helpful and at least make an attempt to get this youth to give them
information.

They turned up after only a few hours (I put this down to the letters
I've written to my MP, senior officers, etc), but their manner was
such that by the time they'd left I was shaking with anger.

One was a very young WPC and the other was bloke in his fifties who
was so fat that I tried to keep from staring at his stomach spilling
over his trousers, and seriously wondered how he could possibly do the
job physically.

Both were pretty unhelpful, and seemed to steer the whole meeting in
order to serve their own agenda, which was to do as little as
possible. The WPC said that the youth probably wouldn't split on his
mates, and I didn't bother telling her that he'd done so in the past
because her whole manner was one of 'I'll only listen to what serves
my interests'. She said that these other youths were obviously being
egged on by this particular youth, and "if he's not with them, I'm
certain they won't give you any trouble". I pointed out to her that
this has never been the case in the past - that in all my experience,
once a new set of youths got to treating me like this, they saw it as
a great game and never stopped.

But that cut no ice with her - because it wasn't what she wanted to
hear. She just repeated what she'd said, and I saw I was going to get
nowhere.

But it was the other officer who really got to be - in fact he's
really the only reason I'm bothering to write this. It's very hard to
describe his matter, what exactly he said, and how he said it - I can
only try to give a vague impression. I can sum it up by saying that
although he never raised his voice or became openly aggressive, by the
time he walked out of my home I felt as bad about myself as I've ever
felt in my life.

I can best describe his behaviour as patronising, condescending,
'playing mind games' and 'trying to psych me out', though there's
nothing in _what_ he said that would even justify that. Mainly it was
in the way he looked at me, the way he always spoke in a quiet,
completely relaxed voice, his smug expression, the way he slouched
against the door frame of the room almost the whole time. Everything
about his speech and body language seemed to say "no matter what you
can possibly say or do in this meeting, _I'm_ the one in control here.
This meeting will turn out exactly as I want it to, and there's
nothing you can do about it". And he managed all this without raising
his voice or using aggressive body language. Even now, I can't figure
out how he managed it.

I could see how he was going to deal with this quite early on. After
they'd tried to fob me off once, I (very politely) said something like
"I want you to ask this youth the names of those others" and I was so
sick of not getting anywhere with the police that I (perhaps
foolishly) added "...and if you don't, I'll have to make a complaint".
At this, he looked at the ceiling, and in a really smug voice said
"You can do what you like, but it won't necessarily help you". To be
fair to him, I think what he meant was that it wouldn't help to catch
those youths, but his whole manner was one of 'there's nothing you can
do that could hurt us, so don't even bother trying'.

At one point, after I began to be feeling pretty upset and was trying
not to show it, he actually said "I can see that you're feeling very
defensive". I had no idea what he meant by this, and should have asked
him, but like a fool I didn't (I've noticed after quite a few meetings
with policemen that there's something about them, and about the
atmosphere they create, that can prevent you seeing the most obvious
things, or asking the most obvious questions). So instead of asking
him that, I just said "I'm not feeling defensive, just angry that
nothing ever seems to get done". This, of course, got me nowhere.

I noticed that he'd occasionally look at the ceiling with a far-away
look in his eyes, and in a very quiet voice say "let me ask you
something..." or "there's one thing I'm curious about..." Then he'd
leave a silence before saying anything else. This, and other things I
can't remember, all added up to making me feel he was 'doing a job on
me' psychologically, and doing it effortlessly.

I kept thinking "this man's making me feel completely worthless. He's
being scrupulously polite, yet it _feels_ as if he's treating me with
open contempt. How is he doing it?"

Just to maintain my own self-respect, I tried to steel myself to say,
at the end of the meeting "I think I should tell you that I'm going to
complain about the way you've been treated me tonight. Please tell me
what the procedure is". But in the end, I just couldn't do it. For one
thing, I felt sure he'd have the perfect brush-off answer to this, and
would be even more pleased with himself that I'd made a feeble attempt
to get some control of the situation and failed - it would be game,
set and match to him. And I'm pretty sure there's nothing I could have
complained about - nothing in his actual words, that is.

They finally took a statement from me, mainly I think because they
thought I wasn't going to accept anything less, but I got no
assurances that they'd take it any further. And as I say, when they
left I felt terrible - far, far worse than those yobs had managed to
make me feel.

So, I'd be very interested to hear any comments here on my experience.
I keep thinking "I'm a very intelligent person, yet this bloke ran
rings round me - is it a technique they develop over the years, or is
it something they're trained to do?" I also wondered if this man, so
much older than the WPC he was with, was showing off to her -
something along the lines of 'there you are, that's how an experienced
copper deals with someone who makes trivial complaints'.

What really gets me is that, first, they treat me like this even
though I'm the victim of a crime, not a criminal, but even more
important, they do this to me in my _own home_. I don't think there
can be many experiences more humiliating, more dispiriting, than being
patronised by a copper in your own home. I've noticed that every time
the police have spoken to me at my home, for hours afterward I haven't
wanted to be in the room where the meeting took place - just being
there brings back bad feelings.

Anyway, end of rant. Opinions, anyone?

date: Tue, 06 Nov 2007 04:41:52 -0800 author: unknown