Police neglect their primary function

When Tony Blair’s Labour government took office in 1997, one of the earliest controversies concerned falling police numbers. Force budgets were slashed despite the “tough on crime” mantra that had helped get the party elected. Within a few years, the decline in officers was so marked that the policy was reversed and, by 2010, overall numbers were at a record high.

History then repeated itself. The Coalition oversaw another cut in police spending and numbers fell once more as recruitment stalled and older officers retired. At the 2019 election, Boris Johnson promised another 20,000 police officers for England, which Rishi Sunak on Wednesday proudly told MPs had been achieved. Numbers now stand at 149,572, slightly above where they were in 2010 in actual terms though still fewer on a per capita basis given the huge population growth ever since.

Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, called this a “historic moment”, adding: “We have more police on the beat preventing violence, solving burglaries and cracking down on antisocial behaviour.” If that were true, it really would be historic. Even with smaller forces, there used to be far more officers walking the streets until they retreated in the 1960s into panda cars and fast-response wagons.

What matters to most people is not necessarily how many police there are but how they are deployed. If they don’t turn up to investigate a burglary, or offer a reassuring presence at crowded events, or if they let eco-fanatics block the highway with virtual impunity then the fact there are more of them is meaningless.

This fixation on numbers has always been the wrong way to look at policing. It may lend itself to a manifesto pledge, but risks adding to public cynicism when people do not associate the pledge with the reality. Of course the nature of policing has changed, with much more online crime to be dealt with (though this could be done by computer experts rather than warranted police officers). In addition, they are still tied up with red tape that successive governments promised to remove.

The contact the police have with the community has become increasingly remote. Many senior officers still consider beat policing to be wasteful. They have been persuaded to focus more on problem-oriented priorities or other crime-specific activity rather than on the primary function of policing, which is to keep law and order.