The State Of Policing 2017 Style

Last updated on October 23rd, 2023 at 04:36 pm

Reading Time: 2 minutes

The date is March 2010. David Cameron has yet to win the General Election and form his ‘victorious’ coalition government.  What does the State of Policing look like?

Firstly, and,  easiest to answer, we have a full compliment of Police Stations, Canteens, Helicopters, Dogs and Horses etc etc. Nobody has yet started to sell them off in the name of #Austerity or reduce their numbers and effectiveness.

England and Wales can boast 143,734 Police Officers.

There were 16,918 PCSOs and 15,505 Specials.

79,596 members of the Civil Staff were available to assist and back up the Police Officers etc with their Admin tasks.

The total number of crimes according to the Crime Survey of England and Wales was 5,900,760. (Due to lack of reliable data for 2010 this is a ‘guestimate based on data that is available). For the Calendar Year 2011 CSEW records 6,878,190 crimes in total.*

Police will attempt to apprehend anyone suspected of being involved in crime, whatever their method and behaviour.

There are no accurate figures available online for Stop and Search in 2010/2011 due to the passing of time, but there were 1,009,126 in 2012.

The population of England and Wales was approx 55.6 Million.

Direct government funding to the Police was £9,022 Million.

David Cameron was the Leader of the Opposition.

Theresa May was ‘just’ the Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions.

Tom Winsor was ‘just’ a solicitor.

Fast Forward to 2017

There are now 123,142 Police Officers keeping us safe.

They are assisted and supported by 10,213 PCSOs and 13,503 Specials.

There are now 61,063 members of the Civil Staff.

Police no longer pursue criminals on motor bikes or mopeds as their bosses have banned the practice in case the poor things come off their bikes and get hurt.  They could, of course, just stop, but why would they when they know they can get away with it?

For the Calendar Year 2016 the Crime Survey of England and Wales records a total of 6,040,726 crimes.*

The latest official figures (mid 2016) give the population of England and Wales as 58.3 Million, an increase of almost 3 Million, or nearly 5%.

Direct government funding to the Police last year was £6,727 Million, reduced by about 25%.

By the end of 2015 615 Police Stations or Front Offices had been closed and a further 125 were earmarked for closure by 2020.

Police Dogs, Horses and Helicopters had all been cut back as being ‘too expensive’ with scarcely a thought to how effective they can be.

David Cameron has been Prime Minister and has now quit politics for good.

Theresa May has been Home Secretary and is now Prime Minister

Sir Thomas Winsor is now Chief Inspector of Constabulary, HMIC, despite never having been a Police Officer at any rank.

ACPO has been wound up and replaced by the National Police Chiefs Council.

College of Policing and Police Now have come into being to ‘transform’ the Police Recruitment and Training processes.

Compare the two scenarios above.  This is basically what the Tory Reforms of Policing have resulted in. How much good news is there? Anything that we can build on and improve for the future. Is the State of Policing looking secure and fit for future challenges?

Maybe there is somebody out there who could do a similar comparison for the NHS, Armed Forces, Prison Service, Education, Probation etc etc. All combined together in one place would make a mighty history of Tory Reform.

  • Crime Figures quoted DO NOT include Anti Social Behaviour, Fraud or Cyber Crime
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