Terry Flynn
I think your experience may be generalisable, though I’d like to give a counter example (Nottm) that illustrate how massive reform can and has led to amazing improvement. I was the “responsible adult” asked by police to represent an alcoholic relative who claimed he had committed murder. The Chief Constable took this seriously enough to mobilise most of the local force – on a Saturday night at midnight.
Whilst waiting for relative to sober up in a cell I chatted to a female Detective Constable going for promotion to Sergeant. She’d had back injury from a suspect which hadn’t settled. As someone with slipped disc I sympathised and we chatted a lot about her job. I wouldn’t have changed places for anything. Her male boss (DS) was equally nice. My dad had previously had an equally sympathetic engagement with local police – better than local social services – for this relative. Twas all sorted in the end. Personally if I were them I’d have charged this relative with wasting police time but they didn’t.