STOP PICKING ON DRIVERS, POLICE TOLD

‘Catch gangsters and leave speeders alone’

POLICE bosses are ditching the battle against organised crime to score political points, says the head of the National Crime Agency.

Police and crime commissioners (PCCs) ignore the most serious crimes because solving them will not win votes.

PCCs get elected every four years, and are supposed to hold police chiefs to account. They are also responsible for setting the budget for forces.

But Lynne Owens – who heads the National Crime Agency – has hit out and said that criminal gangs have been left alone in favour of tackling lesser, local crimes that are more likely to win over the voters.

The National Crime Agency works across the country to fight organised and serious crimes – similar to the American FBI.

Ms Owens, pictured above, said that the PCCs focus on low-level crime, such as anti-social behaviour and burglaries, because it can be seen by the community. She said: “The challenge with serious organised crime is that much of it is hidden to communities.

“And therefore when police and crime commissioners go out to their electorate you can understand why anti-social behaviour or burglary or street robbery is given a higher priority than child abuse or fraud or cyber-enabled crime.

“But we would say that the impacts of [the latter] are greater.”

Ms Owens has run the agency for three years. She has called for new laws to make sure that those police officer fighting major crimes get secured money. Many PCCs do not even mention organised crime in their plans, according to Ms Owens. She said: “I wouldn’t say that we’ve seen any examples of active resistance but... police and crime commissioners are elected on a mandate which has a tendency to be based in the very local.”

While PCCs get elected by the public, very few people turn out to vote. In the first elections in 2012, only 15% of people voted. This improved to about 25% in 2016, but still remains way below the roughly 70% turnout for the 2017 general election.

PCCs were introduced in 2012 to replace police authorities.