Are Cuts To The Police Service Immoral?

[Gromit]

// The expected budget cuts come after a reduction of 20% since 2011 in the amount spent by the Home Office on the police.

After 2015/16, all forces are bracing themselves for further cuts amounting to hundreds of millions of pounds.

The exact level of savings required will depend on the outcome of the general election.

Some PCCs have produced forecasts of budget cuts to 2019, others until 2020, among them:

Kent - £61m budget cut over the next four years

South Yorkshire - £49m between 2016/17 and 2019/20

Merseyside - £47.5m between 2016/17 and 2018/19

Thames Valley - £33m between 2016/17 and 2017/18

In Cumbria, under the PCC's "change programme" to deliver savings of £10m by 2019, the force will be "resolving some issues to the satisfaction of callers without deploying an officer to the scene".

Proposals from Hampshire's PCC, Simon Hayes, say that operational policing "can no longer be ring-fenced" and that front-line services "need to be reduced to meet the financial budget". //

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-31771456

[ludwig]

// In effect, they are deciding some crimes are not worth the effort of investigating. //

Yes, they've been doing that for about 20 years now. You obviously haven't been paying attention.

// It might be useful if they told us what they are then we won't be wasting police time by trying to repirt them. //

They don't like to announce it, but it's basically burglary and anything involving violent gangs of chavs harrassing people. ie 90% of all crime.

[Gromit]

Daily Telegraph 2013:
// Some 15,000 police officer jobs have been lost since the last general election, while a total reduction of 31,600, including police staff, is planned by March 2015. //

I do not follow the the argument that says the police are no longer effective because of the amount of paperwork they have to do, so the solution is to have 30,000 less of them. Cutting paperwork by catching less criminals is surely self defeating.

It is odd that none of the political parties has promised to axe the expensive but worthless Commissioners. Could that be cause the job is the refuge of washed up Labour, LibDem, and Tory has beens.

[anotheoldgit]

DaisyNonna

/// The police force here is a figment of someone's imagination ///

Exactly, that is why they now like to be called The 'Police Service'.

[Marshwarble]

"Immoral" is a silly word to use.

Emotional, surely.

[Gromit]

The Conservative's 2010 Election manifesto, page 55.

// The police should be focusing on police work, not paperwork. a Conservative government will reduce the amount of paperwork that the police have to deal with, starting by scrapping the stop form entirely and reducing the burden to stop and search procedures. any search will still be recorded but by an officer radioing in, rather than filling in paperwork. To allow the police to focus on fighting crime, we will:
- amend the health and safety laws that stand in the way of common sense policing;

- give police the power to identify offenders in order to protect the public and prevent crime;

- return charging discretion to the police for minor offences; and,

- process criminals more quickly by video- linking custody cells and courts.

We will oblige the police to publish detailed local crime data statistics every month, in an open and standardised format. //

So its either failed, or they didn't actually do any of those things once they got in Government.

[mushroom25]

//- return charging discretion to the police for minor offences;//

they did that one right enough.

http://www.guardian-series.co.uk/news/11356250.Rapists__drug_smugglers__and_arsonists_cautioned_by_police/

[Gromit]

Mushroom,

Letting the criminals off saves a lot of paperwork.

[anotheoldgit]

Gromit

/// Letting the criminals off saves a lot of paperwork. ///

It's also good for community and racial relations.

[Canary42]

////or they didn't actually do any of those things once they got in Government.////

Now there's a surprise !

[Gromit]

AOG,
It might be a shocking revelation, but the majority of crimes, are perpetrated by white, indigenous, British people.

[whiskeryron]

//
Svejk
I expect there are eye-watering amounts of money wasted by the police. No doubt, when asked to cut back, they'll deliberately hit front-line services. //

I expect there are eye-watering amounts of money wasted by the Houses Of Parliament