Police League Tables

Last updated on September 20th, 2023 at 02:53 pm

Last updated on September 20th, 2023 at 02:53 pm

Not quite the League Tables you might have been expecting though.

Since 2010 it should be no surprise to anyone that approx 21,000 Police Officers have been culled from the overall strength of the Police Forces of England and Wales.

I shall leave it to others for today to determine how that has affected performance. My personal opinion is that “all you get for less is less”. All these “Work harder, work smarter” mantras are just so much rubbish. It is never my intention to play one Force off against another either.

These League Tables concern how British Policing compares with the Police Forces of other countries viz a viz the number of Police Officers per 100,000 head of population.

The version that the government actually publish is dated 2014 and includes a relatively small number of countries, mainly European.

At just over 200 officers per 100,000 in 2014, even in the government-published figures, we are considerably below the average of 353 officers per 100k.  Figures courtesy of Government Briefing Paper entitled Police Service Strength, published 23rd March 2018.

Out of 33 nations where data was available for 2015, England & Wales was ranked 28th for the number of police officers per 100,000 head of population. Northern Ireland was ranked 11th and Scotland 17th.

What kind of government could be happy with that?

However, I did find considerably more statistics out there, but unfortunately, they do not refer to a common year. However, it does give us an idea where British Policing sits in the greater picture.

I apologise for it being a bit clustered and not showing the names of all of the countries clearly but there are 140 different countries in this comparison and England and Wales proudly rank at #120.

Is it just me that thinks that this is disgusting?

It has nothing to do with wanting a Police State, or a totalitarian regime.  It has everything to do with losing our status as #1 Police Service in the world.  It is totally impossible to provide a decent quality of sevice when the numbers are not there.

Remember someone once said “It’s not about the numbers of police; people often focus on the numbers of police”?  Well I think that this chart demonstrates that it is VERY MUCH about the numbers.

For anyone who is interested you can access the full data here

120th out of 140? Really?  It is absolutely shameful that Theresa May and her government have allowed this to happen.  Worse still, they have MADE IT HAPPEN.  Make no mistake, it is totally the actions of Theresa May, spurred on by her favourite right-wing Think Tanks such as Policy Exchange, that have brought us to where we are.  Police Reform.  Is this what you regard as Police Reform?

Police Forces across the country are finding it necessary to apologise for the quality of the service they provide. Police Officers everuywhere are left feeling burnt out and abandoned, ignored and neglected by ‘the party of Law and Order’ (that’s a laugh). Crime IS rising regardless of what the mandarins tell us, victims of crime are feeling let down, criminals are going unprosecuted due to the lack of officers available to arrest and charge them and put them before the courts, Knife Crime, Acid Attacks, Stabbings, Murders are going through the roof and what is the government response to that?

The Police WANT to deal with these problems that is what every single one of them joined for. Now we have a situation where only Graduates or Apprentices (leading to a degree after 3 years) will be eligible to join the Force and, even better, if they don’t like it after a couple of years the Police will help them to leave and they can be Ambassadors for the Police in a different occupation. What kind of lunacy is this?

Every law-abiding citizen in this country has the absolute right to feel let down and abandoned by the governments since 2010.  All around us their policies are unfolding and shown to be the disasters that they truly are.  NHS, Prison Servvice, Criminal Justice etc etc. Where is their admission that they got it wrong with the Police Service though? There isn’t one. And that is how we ended up at #120 out of 140 in the Police League Table. They simply refuse to listen.