Posts Tagged ‘policing’

Tory cuts are gutting policing

11/09/2014, 06:44:53 PM

by Amanda Ramsay

After four years of this dreadful Tory and Lib Dem Coalition, savage austerity cuts have seen hundreds of frontline staff being laid off across police forces, leaving the firm impression of a government hell bent on small state governance at any cost to society and our safety.

Appearing to value the privatisation of the police, probation and even prison service over keeping law and order, statistics are often hard to believe however, due to their notorious unreliability; yet inside sources from with the police report a toxic mix of the lowest number of police officers per capita, with the second highest crime rate in Europe.

In about 1970, crimes reported hit one million and kept rising. At the time this was seen as staggeringly high. By 2005 it reached 5,800,000. In 2006 it reached 6,200,000.

Meanwhile a government minister said recently that crime was going down – that it had been going down year by year for 14 years!

On top of the rising crime is the number of offences not even being recorded by police – credit card fraud for example is not being recorded. Rape is known to be under-reported.

The Home Office was not forthcoming on official statistics re reported crime and police numbers, despite recent written requests in recent years by a researcher colleague of mine, nor have they sent any replies or acknowledgements even. What are they trying to hide?

Additionally, the criminal justice system does not appear to be ‘joined up.’  Courts are thought to not be taking ‘decisive or constructive action’ in dealing with persistent offenders, according to one former police officer.

The UK has the second highest crime rate in Europe. In terms of recorded crimes of violence, the UK wins top place in Europe as having the worst record. Much of this is drink related. Domestic violence appears to also be on the rise, as well as rape, child abuse and human trafficking.

Hampshire police have reportedly had their budget cut by £52 million per annum. They have had to close 14 police stations. Only very large stations are open to the public at night – such as Southampton Central.

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Letter from Wales: Should policing really be devolved to the Welsh Assembly Government?

18/10/2013, 01:49:06 PM

by Julian Ruck

Warwickshire police commissioner Ron Ball is not quite a marauding Genghis Khan of police accountability, is he? More the sweet talking muse of old Bill romantic verse, it seems. His line, you must admit, of “let’s wait and see” certainly tends to disappoint when the evidence is clear and unequivocal in respect of the Andrew Mitchell debacle: the police lied….again.

But all is not lost. These bold outriders for public accountability, though somewhat mired in mystery where the general public are concerned, do enjoy a modest degree of virtue as I recently discovered when interviewing the Dyfed Powys police and crime commissioner Christopher Salmon.

The thrust of my interview concerned the devolving of police powers to Carwyn’s Team Druid in Cardiff Bay.

Before going any further, I must remind readers that the first minister was “roasted” by Welsh Labour MP’s back in March over this very issue, as originally reported by the Western Mail and then taken up by BBC Wales.

Talk of the tea room in Westminster, apparently. Indeed one senior politician compared Rhodri Morgan (Carwyn’s mentor in public sector studies) with Ramsay Macdonald and another loyalist Valley’s MP told Carwyn directly that it was a pity that he didn’t pay more attention to health and education in Wales instead of devolving police powers, with criminal justice to follow.

Yet another Westminster Welsh politico complained, “He didn’t consult anybody. He didn’t discuss his proposals with his own cabinet or even Labour AMs’.”

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Cameron’s broken promises on policing

22/07/2011, 11:00:01 AM

by Matt Cavanagh

A few days before the general election, David Cameron famously promised that “Any Cabinet minister, if we win the election, who comes to me and says ‘here are my plans and they involve front line reductions’ will be sent back to their department to go away and think again.” As late as last September, home secretary Theresa May was insisting that “lower budgets do not mean lower numbers of police officers”. The breathtaking disingenuousness of these soundbites has been exposed again yesterday, as Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary publish the first authorised estimate of how the government’s 20% cut in police funding, announced in October’s spending review, will affect police numbers – and in particular how it will affect the front line.

The report, based on detailed investigation of individual forces’ plans, estimates that 16,200 police officers will be cut between 2010 and 2015. This entirely undoes Labour’s investment between 2000 and 2010, taking police numbers back to 1997 levels.

There is undoubtedly scope for efficiency savings in the police. Some of these were already in train before the election (they are set out in Chapter 5 of the 2009 White Paper). But as is clear from the graph on p24 of the HMIC report, with 81% of police funding going on staff costs, and another 10% going on areas like transport and premises, the 20% cuts announced in the spending review were always going to cut deep into police numbers. (more…)

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