Detention Officer
Northumbria Police

Paul P

0.00.00 Hi, my name’s Paul P. I’m a Detention Officer for the Northumbria Police. A lot of people think my job’s like a Prison Officer but what I’ve got to remember is that everybody’s not guilty when they come in, they’re only guilty after they’ve been to Court, so you’ve got to treat them as if you want to be treated yourself. The negative sides when it’s normally to be honest with you, a Friday night is when you get a lot of the drunk and disorderlies in and a lot of aggressiveness and that’s a side of society

0.00.30 and the good side bit is when you get somebody in there who you can see they know they’ve done wrong but they can actually errors of the ways and they actually ask for help about for how they can get out their predicament, whether it’s drug advice, going to see a councillor which is provided or just wanting never to be in custody again basically. Well my parents always thought I’d join the Armed Services, just because it was the type of thing I played with, little plastic toy soldiers, probably my favourite toy as a kid.

0.01.00 But I think the aspect of when I got older basically not really wanting to be shot at which is the main reason why I didn’t join the Services. So I think that’s why I looked towards to something as active as the Police Force. At school I enjoyed school to be honest. I enjoyed the sports aspect, playing rugby, the socialising aspect and I enjoyed certain subjects, but made me personally if I’m interested in a subject I’ll tend to do really, really well at it.

0.01.30 If I’m not, like for example, French and German, languages, I’m not interested and I won’t do well in it. So I generally did, I did well in the aspects of geography and history. The turning point in making me instead of just being a whimsical fantasy of joining the Police, I mean doing something actually about it was university.

0.02.00 Before that I had a set of GCSE, A levels, university, get the job, get the house and university made me realise that it just wasn’t for me, that the desk job aspect of it. At least it gave me a bit of a jolt, woke me up from a slumpish road I was going down. I looked into joining the Northumbria Police but found out that without my glasses on my eyesight wasn’t good enough to join as a Police Officer. So I looked into getting eye surgery. After I did that at the time they wouldn’t accept still that surgery cos it was new.

0.02.30 So since then I’ve done jobs as a salesman, doing that, I also spent six months away travelling to get the more life experience, through America and Australia. And then when I’ve come back I found out that they do allow the surgery now and that’s why I started looking towards the career as a Detention Officer, to give me the insight to go for the ultimate goal as a Police Officer.

0.03.00 I’d say my father was a big influence for making me work hard to reach my goals, is because he struggled to become an accountant. He started off, he struggled quite badly at school. He had the same problem I do, if he’s not interested in something he kind of just switches off. But he had to retake one of his years when he was younger and that kind of gave him the jolt, the realisation to become a chartered accountant which is, at the time was one of the hardest exams to go through.

0.03.30 With regards to people I work with, mostly with regards to some of the Police Officers who have been here for a long time, some are sergeants, when you hear the stories of what they’ve been through in the past, you respect the job they’ve done and the job they’re doing for society at the home, it does make you, encourage you to want to, well for me personally to become a Police Officer, which is one of the reasons why I looked for the job as a Detention Officer, to get an insight into the organisation.

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