Lancashire Constabulary to set up "Probe Bureau"

In accordance with editorial guidelines established by local news sources, the Lancashire Constabulary have announced that they will roll up all existing investigative departments into a new dedicated superdepartment, the Probe Bureau.

The new Probe Bureau

The Blackburn Bugle today probed Detective Superintendent Austin James, the officer selected to head this new department. When asked why the change was necessary, James replied: "In the current economic climate, it's important that we look to conserve previous resources, and a recent internal audit concluded that 0.83% of our officers' time is taken up writing or typing the word 'investigation'. Of course, with the additional ink use and keyboard wear this entails, something had to be done. Shortening the term to 'probe' is the ideal solution.

"All officers in the Probe Bureau will now be referred to as 'Probers', and the squad cars are named 'Probemobiles'. All officers will be fitted with a consolidated multipurpose 'Probulator' device, which will serve as a baton, mobile phone, handcuffs, coffee stirrer and toupee clip; all the tools a modern Prober needs in the 21st Century."

Drug crime is of course a perennial issue in Blackburn, and a unit will be set up within the Probe Bureau to deal with this unique problem. Police Alsatians will be equipped with special baseball cap and tracksuit uniforms and retrained as Probe Dogs to blend in with local youth and sniff out those hard to find stashes. Police have dubbed this campaign the "Space Probe".

Probes into large scale financial fraud will be the domain of a special, extremely orderly and meticulous unit of the Probe Bureau in their new purpose built Anal Probe building (pictured above) at Greenbank Business Park, Blackburn. "I'll admit it's an unfortunate name", commented Det. Supt. James, "but we'd already paid for the sign when we noticed the error."