It’s not ordinary bobbies who have given up on crime
THE origin of the phrase “lions led by donkeys” is lost in time. It’s usually associated with the First World War but I’d like to suggest that on a lesser level it can usefully be applied to the modern police force. This week the Met’s Deputy Assistant Commissioner Mark Simmons said that it’s no longer the police’s role to investigate “lower level” crimes such as shoplifting, car crime and criminal damage.
There you have in one short statement pretty much everything that has gone wrong with the police force.
I am of course using entirely the wrong terminology, which is itself a telling commentary on how the police’s priorities have changed. They long ago stopped calling themselves the police force and decided they should instead be the police service as if the notion of a police force that tried to stop crime and catch criminals was far too old fashioned.
Now we have the latest development in the move away from stopping crime and catching criminals: a statement that says in effect that police chiefs no longer think it worth bothering with “low level” crime.
UNDER the Met’s new crime assessment policy, police officers will “determine very quickly if it is proportionate” to investigate “lower level, higher volume offences” further.
There’s a classic line in Mr Simmons’ statement: “Clearly this is not about letting criminals get away with crime.”
I always enjoy it when statements by public figures mean the precise opposite of the words they use. This is a perfect example with the word “not” giving the game away. The crime assessment policy is entirely about letting criminals get away with crime because the police will not be investigating those crimes.
Reports suggest that the new guidelines will mean 150,000 fewer offences a year being investigated.
Indeed it’s even worse than that: by signalling this new approach, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Simmons is telling criminals that they are in effect free to get away with some crimes. So there will be more crime as a result.
But shocking as this may seem it should surprise no one because it is simply the latest example of a long-term trend by the police in changing the definition of what constitutes a significant crime. When your car is broken into, for example, to police bosses it is now considered inconsequential because it is not a murder or a huge fraud. But it is deeply consequential to you.
It’s important here to make the distinction between police officers on the ground – the lions, as it were – and their bosses, the donkeys.
Speak to ordinary officers and you’ll hear the same thing: that they are frustrated and angry that they are not able to get on with the job they signed up for.
They usually blame two things: their bosses, who they say live in a different world from their day-to-day experience on the front line, and the Government, for cuts. And yes, cuts have had an impact. The Met has to find some £400 million in savings.
But there is a deeper issue that leads to the police writing off some crimes as not worth the bother of investigating and deciding that others merit huge resources. It is senior officers, not cuts, who have set these priorities over many years – priorities that are so out of kilter with what the public and the mass of police officers themselves want.
Take Devon and Cornwall police, where it was revealed by an officer that there are times when no police are free to answer 999 calls because instead of being allocated to patrols or dealing with day-today crime they are all working on serious crimes in specialised units.
This is not about money, it is about priorities. Millions are always available for the police to investigate patently ludicrous allegations from fantasists against the likes of Lord Bramall, Sir Leon Brittan and Paul Gambaccini. And supposed hate crimes, which can sometimes be no more than a few rude comments on social media, have suddenly become a key priority.
BUT when it comes to real crimes that drive people to despair the response of police chiefs is to simply pretend they don’t exist. And this extends far beyond the Met: Avon and Somerset police has, for example, closed its burglary unit.
No wonder that, in March, Zoe Billingham, Her Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary, reported that a third of police forces are classified as either “requires improvement” or “inadequate”. But as she made clear these failings are “not simply about money”. They are about priorities and the insistence by police chiefs that officers devote their time to a limited range of activities.
You’ll probably be surprised to learn that the police have far more officers today than in the past: in 1901 there was one policeman per 765 people; in 1951 one per 693; and in 2001 one per 417.
Yet you’re far less likely to see a police officer today. Only one in five of us reported seeing an officer on the beat in the past month because police chiefs have other priorities. These warped priorities are not going to change. The answer may lie in the much derided post of Police and Crime Commissioner, which is elected and thus subject – and hopefully responsive – to the views of ordinary people.
It’s fashionable to sneer at them. But if we are going to free up police officers, the pressure has to come from somewhere.
‘Chiefs not bothered with low level offences’