Seven years on street: an officer’s view on safety

Ask Andrew what he expected when he began a career in enforcement seven years ago, and the answer is refreshingly ordinary: he liked the idea of working outdoors, and he liked dealing with people.

“We interact all day with the public and it’s not all bad – in fact, 95% of it is very nice. They just have genuine questions as to a parking situation. Do they have to pay? Where do they pay? Where’s longer parking? Where’s a certain bank? Where’s the post office? That’s often a common one.”

There is a second part to the appeal, though, and it is the part most people overlook. Andrew genuinely believes in what enforcement is for.

“I like the idea of being able to enforce and keep parking safe, and keep parking spots moving on. Because I’ve noticed that if there was no control, people literally would park anywhere. We still see it at times. Without any sort of regulation, it actually would be chaos.”

The 5%

That leaves the other 5%. Enforcement work means asking people to do things they would rather not do, and occasionally that leads to tension.

Andrew’s approach is built almost entirely on patience.

“It’s important to keep calm, hear people out and seek to understand what their point of view is,” he says. “The thing is, you never know what sort of day someone is having. So, if someone is angry, it might not be with you as much as with the overall situation.”

And what to do if a situation does escalate?

“We clearly communicate with people, and then if it gets to an aggressive or abusive stage, we just walk away and leave the area.”

It sounds simple. But in practice, knowing when to walk away is a skill. And it is one Andrew credits to training.

What the training actually teaches 

Andrew tells us that his council, new officers begin with a communication and conflict course, along with safe work procedures they are formally tested on. Safety audits and pop quizzes then run monthly to make sure those procedures stay front of mind rather than fading into something learned once and forgotten.

In his own training the most valuable lesson, Andrew says, was not a technique. It was an insight about people.

“It was interesting to find out that different things upset different people. A lot of people can ignore many things, but there’s often one thing that could be their boiling point. For example, if you’re patrolling and a member of the public becomes racially abusive or spits on you – this could be your trigger. When you learn what those triggers are, you can then remove yourself from the situation before it escalates further.”

Alongside the training sit the tools. Officers carry body-worn cameras, and they carry a duress alarm through PinForce.

“It’s helpful to discreetly be able to call for backup if a situation escalates,” Andrew says.

Why discreet matters as much as fast

In a tense interaction, reaching for a phone, unlocking it, finding a contact and explaining where you are is not realistic. Worse, the act of visibly calling for help can escalate the very situation an officer is trying to defuse.

The PinForce duress alarm is built around that problem. There is no fumbling and no dialling. Officers can activate it from their Android device in more than one way (including simply pressing the power button).

An officer can trigger the alarm with a hand still in their pocket, or from the screen they are already working on in PinForce. They can then maintain eye contact, keep their voice level, and the situation as calm as possible – all while help is already being mobilised behind the scenes.

Once activated, the alarm automatically sends alerts by phone call, SMS and email to nominated contacts. So the right people are notified immediately through more than one channel. Whether the escalation point is a team leader, a control room or a group of senior officers, everyone who needs to know, knows fast.

Help that finds you

Raising the alarm is only half the job. Responders also have to find the officer – and an officer who needs help may not know the exact address they are standing at or may not be in a position to describe it.

That is why the SMS and email alerts include a Google Maps link showing the officer’s location. Responders can automatically see exactly where the officer is and go.

A discreet trigger and an automatic location means an officer can call for backup without anyone around them realising it, and responders can find them without a word being exchanged.

Looking after the community, too

It is worth remembering that officer safety and community safety are the same job.

“There may be an incident or accident, or somebody’s hurt, or there’s a traffic blockage, or there’s a person or car driving dangerously,” Andrew says. “We’ll put a message straight out to everybody to avoid the area to keep people safe.”

“If it is an incident, we’re trained to write an incident report, and any evidence we collect may be called on for follow-up by the council or local laws team,” he adds.

That is the quiet reality of the role. Seven years in, Andrew still describes the job as 95% good conversations with people who simply want to know where to park.

The safety training, procedures and tools exist for the rare occasions something does go wrong. So an officer is never facing it alone.

If you would like your officers to have the same peace of mind, our friendly team would be happy to show you how the PinForce duress alarm works.