Become a detective... in 12 weeks
Police to fast-track graduates in drastic bid to create 1,000 extra crimefighters
UP TO 1,000 graduates are to be trained as detectives on a 12-week course under plans to tackle a ‘national crisis’ in police staffing levels, ministers will announce today.
Home Secretary Sajid Javid acted after warnings crimes were going unsolved due to a shortage of investigators.
Under the drive, candidates would be trained on a programme lasting just three months in a bid to create 1,000 extra detectives within five years.
New detectives usually go through 18 months of intensive training. The initiative comes as a violent crimewave grips ‘Wild West Britain’, with thugs running amok with apparent impunity. London Mayor Sadiq Khan described it this weekend as a ‘national emergency’.
Critics of the detective scheme will question the Government’s commitment to plugging the gap. In March, HM Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) high- lighted a national shortfall of 5,000 detectives, with one in five desks either left empty or filled with unqualified staff. It means crucial evidence risks being overlooked or lost – jeopardising the chance of bringing culprits to justice.
The Home Office said it would provide £350,000 to develop the rolling detective entry programme. Once the course is up and running, it will include digital training so recruits are equipped to deal with new offences, such as cyber-crime and online abuse.
In its report, HMIC said forces had 17 per cent fewer investigators than they needed – a shortage of more than 5,000. Suffolk had a shortfall of almost 50 per cent, while four in ten detectives’ desks in Hertfordshire and Lancashire were unoccupied.
It found that the shortage of qualified detectives and other investigators was ‘critical’ and amounted to a ‘national crisis’ which was ‘potentially exposing victims to risk’.
Significant growth in specialist areas of policing, such as counter-ter- rorism and sexual abuse and other investigations involving vulnerable people, has resulted in a need for more qualified and specialist investigators.
The Police Federation warned last year that morale among detectives had hit ‘rock bottom’ amid mounting workloads, exhaustion and stress.
The new programme will be run alongside Police Now, a police graduate recruitment programme.
The Home Office is already providing £2.8million to support Police Now in 2018-19 and will provide an additional £350,000 ‘seed funding’ for the detective entry programme.
Police Minister Nick Hurd said: ‘Detectives are the fact-finders of our police service. They play an important role in bringing criminals to justice and getting to the bottom of complex crimes. I’m keen to get more new detectives trained up.
‘These steps will help to ensure forces are matching the capacity and capability of their workforce to the demands they face.’
No start date for the scheme has been fixed but it is not expected to launch this year.
‘Get to the bottom of complex cases’