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South Yorkshire Police helicopter MEGATHREAD (excl. sightings)

Do you agree that the Police helicopter should be scrapped?  

77 members have voted

  1. 1. Do you agree that the Police helicopter should be scrapped?

    • Yes I agree
      10
    • No I don't
      60
    • I don't care
      3
    • I''m a criminal, so I do agree
      4


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those figures are based on arrests not convictions and dont take into account the original cost of the helicopter itself or crew wages as they are paid from normal police funding. The annual budget covers little more than fuel and maintainance of the aircraft. Numbers of arrest quoted are directly attributable to the helicopter where assists are only where the helicopter may be present and not really required. Its a bit like saying a policeman stood on the corner of city road assisted with traffic flow problems on brammall lane because he directed traffic away from the city centre.

 

 

the point being that for the majority of cases involving the helicopter such as chasing speeding motorists the cost of the chopper coppers far out weigh the recovered fines gains, even at £3263 quoted above for a £60 speeding conviction ( see Tv's Police reality shows) it seems a rather big wastage.

 

You can't really base your argument on convictions. If that were the case there would never be any investigation in to crimes with a low conviction rate such as rape. Also, an assist is an assist. If a crime was taking place on Brammall Lane and the chopper was hovering over City Rd it would not be classed as an assist would it?

 

I bet if you looked at the figures the cost of the police force are never met by fines. It is not a waste. It is keeping crime as low as possible using the tools at it's disposal.

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Does this mean that S Y Police consider themselves to be adequately funded and they can cope with the cuts?

 

Wonder how may beat officers we're down due to the cuts?

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What exactly is your point..?

Tell me what figures you would like and i'll virtually guarantee I can work the stats to prove it...

Lie damn lies and statistics...

 

http://www.southyorkshire.police.uk/foi/disclosurelog/20080451

 

from this page of freedom of information requests

Annual budget = £1,279,471

number of arrests that year 241

number of assist arrests 151

 

241+151=392 arrests

 

1,279,471 divided by 392 = £3263 per arrest..

 

It doesn't just go up for arrests though. It's been instrumental in finding missing children and vulnerable people. I guess those figures won't show up when you just ask for arrest rates.

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If the police helicopter locates and maybe saves the life of 1 missing vulnerable person per year how much is that worth?

 

If it's 20, what's the value?

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The government i believe announced the setting up of the national air service that meant a group of helicopters would be run by this service and based at locations around the country so that they could respond to incidents all over and get rid of regional boundaries. However when the details were announced South Yorkshire wasn't going to be a base for any of these helicopters therefore would have to rely on a helicopter coming from derbyshire or west yorkshire or somewhere, resulting in longer response times when it was actually available.

 

The government were expecting all police forces to agree to be a part of this new service, however the south yorkshire police authority have made the decision that this new service does not provide the type of cover that they would like and therefore have now made the decision to opt out, the first force in the country to do so.

 

So it was previously reported the SYP were going to be a part as it was expected that all police forces would join, however as more details are being released it as now been decided not to be involved. No firm decisions had previously been made, just an assumption of what it was believed would happen.

It is the way the subject was reported as though SYP was no longer going to have its own helicopter as a result of government cuts to budgets.

Sensationalism and scare mongering in this and other matters seem to take precedence over facts.

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Could they now fit it with air to ground missiles and machine guns? :o

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Most businesses have to consider things like a cost/benefit analysis, return on investment etc. I don't see why public services should not have to do the same.

 

Based on the link boxlightner provided, the number of arrests SY99 is involved in is a little over one per day. To me that is not a great use of nearly £1.3m per year. Imagine how many beat officers that would buy. What would they do with a speed camera if it was only catching one person per day?

 

What about the other tasks it carries out, which do not lead directly to arrests? Missing person searches, public safety/crowd control at major events or in emergencies, assisting the fire and ambulance services? They all need to be factored into any cost benefit analysis. You would need to consider the cost of additional ground officers (e.g to search moorland for a missing person), and the fact that the helicopter improves the chances of the missing person being found quickly, which improves the chances of them staying alive.

 

I'm not saying it's wrong to consider whether a police asset is value for money, just that it has a far greater role than arresting a few chavs.

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Do we still pay for it to monitor crowds at sporting events? Surely cutting that twice weekly event would save a few quid.

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Most businesses have to consider things like a cost/benefit analysis, return on investment etc. I don't see why public services should not have to do the same.

 

Indeed; the problem is that for many public services the benefit is not necessarily easy to quantify in the same way x amount of product sold might be. As others have pointed out, the raw arrest stats do not capture everything the helicopter does.

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What about the other tasks it carries out, which do not lead directly to arrests? Missing person searches, public safety/crowd control at major events or in emergencies, assisting the fire and ambulance services? They all need to be factored into any cost benefit analysis. You would need to consider the cost of additional ground officers (e.g to search moorland for a missing person), and the fact that the helicopter improves the chances of the missing person being found quickly, which improves the chances of them staying alive.

 

I'm not saying it's wrong to consider whether a police asset is value for money, just that it has a far greater role than arresting a few chavs.

 

You know a lot of that stuff could be done by UAVs, deployable from the back of a patrol car.

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mj.scuba has a valid point, drones now are so small that they fit in a small suitcase, infact they could fit in a pair of motorcycle panniers. The latest one used in afghanistan etc has interchangeable battery packs that give it over 2 hours in air time. Imagine how many you could purchase for the cost of a 4 seat helicopter and its yearly running bill ? thats probably over 20 sets of airbourne eyes in the sky when and where they are needed, deployed by the people that need them most, the ground coppers. And given the fact that they are low noise at under 65db no annoying 3 am helicopter noises.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/8510370.stm

 

merseyside police have already deployed them

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mj.scuba has a valid point, drones now are so small that they fit in a small suitcase, infact they could fit in a pair of motorcycle panniers. The latest one used in afghanistan etc has interchangeable battery packs that give it over 2 hours in air time. Imagine how many you could purchase for the cost of a 4 seat helicopter and its yearly running bill ? thats probably over 20 sets of airbourne eyes in the sky when and where they are needed, deployed by the people that need them most, the ground coppers. And given the fact that they are low noise at under 65db no annoying 3 am helicopter noises.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/8510370.stm

 

merseyside police have already deployed them

 

Is it not the case that each drone is fitted out with a specific camera?

 

So it can only have one type of camera at a time. That means when a situation changes the drone is rendered useless. These drones wouldn't fit in a pannier either. They are much larger than that. They would probably take up a very large boot of a car.

The latest one used in Afghanistan is going to be the best of the best and will probably cost way over 100k to buy.

 

NO drone has the bonus of having more than one person looking in all directions. Whilst i think drones are a good way to head in the future, i feel they are by no means a replacement for the helicopter we have at the moment.

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