… and they are ignoring vandals
POLICE are not responding to some crimes including violence, assaults and criminal damage, a watchdog warns.
Socalled ‘low priority’ incidents are being shunned or not investigated for weeks, said HM Inspectorate of Constabulary.
A damning report reinforced concerns that victims are losing confidence in forces which increasingly treat offences such as street attacks and car crime as minor matters.
Inspectors published the dossier just weeks after some forces were accused of indulging in bizarre stunts including painting their nails, instead of focusing on crime.
The HMIC report found police had worked to reduce the demand placed on them by the public, which included calls to 999 and the nonemergency 101 numbers. It said: ‘In reducing demand, it is important that forces do not simply suppress it, by which we mean fail to identify, acknowledge or deal with certain kinds of demand.
‘HMIC is beginning to see examples of forces taking action to prioritise their demand in such a way that lowpriority and less urgent incidents can be left unresolved for long periods.’
HM Inspector Mike Cunningham added: ‘In some places when a call for service is assessed as low priority, not only might it wait for a long time, but sometimes they might go unresourced completely. Nothing is done at all. There will be examples across the country of when there has been a call for service that hasn’t been responded to.’
The number of 999 calls received by forces was up by 10 per cent in 201617 compared to the year before. Total arrests have almost halved compared with ten years ago.
Yet police forecast they will make £900million in savings over the next five years.
HMIC said: ‘While most forces throughout England and Wales have risen impressively to the challenges they face, policing remains under significant stress. Forces’ plans for the future need to be more ambitious and innovative.
‘In the cases of those which fail in this, the problems facing those forces could potentially prove overwhelming.’