Gardai should be removed from all 'traffic' work..

Witcher wrote: »

But that attitude of 'shruggng their shoulders' and refusing to give information isn't hurting the Gardai, it's hurting their neighbours and victims of crime. They're cutting their nose off to spite the Gardai when being honest the Gardai have no skin in the game anyway. It's not the Garda's house that got burgled or got assaulted. The incident just gets closed off, no witnesses. Off to the next one, meanwhile the injured party is at a loss.

It's not the job of the Gardai to appease and pander to idiots who can't understand that.

(this comment was longer than i anticipated, and is a bit ramble-y in parts )


I don't doubt that Gardai, being hindered in their progress, is a bad thing for the local community as a whole. People are, as a general rule of thumb, shortsighted.

However, the point still stands. For example, there was a fairly major newsworthy incident recently (national news) in my area. There were people that absolutely could have assisted, had they been bothered, but they have had bad experience with the Gardai (they're not a family of hardened criminals, so presumably from 'normal' interactions) but they opted to not answer the door when the gardai came around looking for assistance, and just ignored them, when they actually did have 'useful' information.

Is it the victim of the crime that's being hurt more than the Gardai? Yeah, of course. The Gardai likely don't care either way. Whether you help them or not, they're clocking off in two hours. But it's a resentment to the Gardai that gets bred, that doesn't prove useful.

My anecdotal experience is that this would be commonly at traffic stops. It's not statistical proof, of course.



Similar is the issue of Gardai not responding to calls. I live in an area where the Gardai will tell you over the phone they are busy with something but will get up to you shortly, only to never appear.

I, personally, rang the Gardai on a 999 call about 2 years back, and had to ring again 45 minutes later. Two hours later I still hadn't seen a Garda, so i rang again. Two hours after a 999 call i was told they'd be with me 'shortly'. I told them not to bother. I'm persistent, so i'd ring them again, anyway, but when I relayed this story to a neighbour of mine, she informed me the same had happened her before, so she just doesn't ring them anymore at all and has no interest in dealing with them.

I appreciate this is a bit of a step away in discussion to removal of Gardai from traffic work, but it's still demonstrable that poor interaction with Gardai will shadow people's future interactions (or lack thereof).

To many people, the Gardai are a single person. Much like if your first experience with a black person, or traveller, or doctor, etc. is negative, it makes you weary of future interactions as you're always on edge. If you rarely interact with the Gardai, but you are left with a sour taste in your mouth after initially having to deal with them, it doesn't help your attitude towards them going forward (not that I expect all Gardai to be amazing all the time).


But my post here is more just a 'thinking out loud' post. I just wanted to hear what others thought of the idea.