VANISHING THIN BLUE LINE
Britain’s policing faces its own emergency crisis with forces tackling soaring crime as the number of officers drops to lowest in 37 years
THE scale of the crisis facing police forces is exposed today as figures reveal the lowest number of officers since the infamous “riot year” of 1981.
Just 110,000 are struggling to cope with an epidemic of knife crime, a surge of violence on the streets as well as warring drugs gangs, spiralling cyber crime and the ever-present terrorist
threat. Since 2010, more than 20,000 frontline officers have vanished from our streets. The shocking revelation comes as an exclusive Survation poll for the Daily Express shows almost half the population have never seen a police officer on the beat in their area at night.
The poll gives overwhelming support for calls for Theresa May’s government to reverse savage cuts in policing budgets as fear of crime hits a new high.
And there is widespread support for our over-worked, under-paid bobbies to be handed a wage rise following shocking revelations about officers relying on charity just to make ends meet.
The truth about the number of police available for duty was revealed to MPs in a special House of Commons briefing paper.
Excluding absent staff [such as those taking career breaks or parental leave], there were just 110,000 officers in England’s 39 forces. And when Wales is included, there were 117,456 officers at March 31, 2018. The paper said that “this was the lowest figure since 1981”.
In 1981, London, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham and other cities were hit by a wave of riots.
Yesterday Andy Cooke, chief constable of Merseyside, said forces are now expected to cope with a heavier burden of crime plus a range of other responsibilities.
He said: “Policing is still the same. It’s about keeping people safe, protecting communities, giving communities confidence in law order.
“That’s not changed. But we are so stretched now because not only are we doing trying to catch the criminals, addressing the gangs and the guns, in addition to that we’re doing a lot around mental health.
“We’re increasingly becoming a more social-service type approach but there are still criminals to catch. It shouldn’t be for policing to look after people with significant mental health issues. But we are the first and last resort.”
Mr Cooke, whose force has lost 1,100 officers, said: “Policing is far more complex than it was three decades ago. We’ve had advances in technology that assist policing but they also counter our attempts to counter crime.
“For me it is common sense, we need more police officers now than we needed in 1981. Technology cannot do the job of police officers, giving confidence to communities on our streets on a daily basis.”
He added: “Those 1,100 officers I’ve lost, many of them would have been pro-actively targeting offenders. Targeting your gangs, targeting your burglars, targeting your robbers, putting the fear back in the criminal.
“Putting the criminal on the back foot and the community seeing the police on the front foot doing that. It’s becoming harder and harder to that.”
Mike Barton, chief constable of Durham, said: “We’re certainly being asked to do more with less and the public are seeing fewer officers on patrol. If we didn’t have police community support officers, then people in some towns wouldn’t see anybody on foot.
“Detection rates, the proportion of crimes that are successfully investigated, for some crimes are very low. The way we detect crime is that you get there quickly, you make sure you speak to victims and witnesses and they give you the clues so you can lock up the villains. Often the villain is nearby when you get there. But if you don’t get to the job, then all those opportunities to investigate crime aren’t there.”
A total of 55 per cent of respondents to the Survation poll said they were more concerned about becoming a victim of crime compared to five years ago. There was widespread condemnation of the way ministers lavish billions on overseas aid and starve public services at home including policing of much-needed cash. Seventy-three per cent of the 1,013 people polled said public spending should be more focused on domestic priorities.
Home Secretary Sajid Javid is said to have agreed a £600million funding boost for police in England and Wales – but council tax payers will be asked to foot the bill for £450million of it.
Most areas most hit by street crime often have a very high number of poor families who qualify for council tax rebates. That means local authorities will end up paying for any increase in police spending from their own coffers.
A Home Office spokesman said: “We are on the front foot in engaging
with the police and recognise the changing demands they are facing. There is £1billion more of public money going into policing than three years ago and the Home Secretary has been clear that he will prioritise police funding.
“The Chancellor has said that we are reviewing police spending power ahead of setting out the police funding settlement for 2019-20 to Parliament in due course.”
THE first responsibility of any government is to keep its citizens safe. Which is why the results of today’s Daily Express poll should ring alarm bells in Westminster, where politicians are so caught up in Brexit that there’s a danger they might not fully appreciate the extent of the crisis.
Knife crime is out of control; there have been 140 murders and 181 attempted murders over a six-month period; assaults are up, robberies have increased and, crucially, the fear of crime has never been higher. The police have all this to cope with as the number of officers on the beat plummets.
Shockingly, 40 per cent of people said they have never seen an officer on routine patrol at night. But this is not just a numbers game. Sadly, our police increasingly are caught up in what loosely can be called “social issues” such as monitoring those with serious mental health problems or dealing with domestic disputes.
In most towns on a Saturday night you will find officers picking up drunken bodies. That’s not what they are paid to do and it’s not what they want to do. Our police – still largely unarmed and still, in general, highly disciplined
– are integral to a stable society. They deserve our support and the Home Office must have a strategy to keep our communities safe.