Time to get back to the basics of policing

The police are losing control and need to get a grip. New figures show that the number of people being arrested in England and Wales has halved in the past decade – and efforts are already being made to pass the buck. The Home Office insists the fall in arrests is partly down to the greater use of cautions and warnings to stop people entering custody, but it comes at the same time as certain types of crime – particularly violent crime – are on the increase. It is also frequently said that such rises are explained by better reporting. But if citizens are reporting more crime, wouldn’t it make greater sense if arrests went up, not down?

Someone has lost a sense of priorities. On the one hand, resources have been pumped into dealing with, say, historical sex abuse allegations against dead politicians, which cannot result in an arrest because the suspect is no longer alive. On the other hand, some felonies have almost become decriminalised. Nine out of ten home burglary investigations are closed without a suspect being identified. This comes at a time when it has been disclosed that officers in London have been told to give a lower priority to certain crimes that cannot be investigated easily and resolved quickly.

Half the problem is that police are not seen enough on the streets, which works as a deterrent, and yet they have become a familiar presence on social media, usually encouraging people to report perceived acts of hate. And an ideologically liberal approach to law enforcement, which began under Theresa May as home secretary, has probably made things worse. Stop and search is down dramatically, but has fallen at a faster rate for whites than black people, leading to a growing disparity. It could be inferred that the hands-off policy is not only less successful but less fair, too.

The job of the police is to protect life and property, to bring offenders to justice. The obsession with Left-wing causes might make Labour MPS happy, but it betrays the most vulnerable in society. Crime ruins lives, blights entire areas, discourages investment and lowers the wealth and well-being of those affected in the most arbitrary way imaginable. There should be zero tolerance for any offences, on the basis that tackling the smaller things very often stops worse transgressions taking place. It’s time for the police to drop the politically inspired gimmicks and get back to the essentials of policing.