| Topic: | Re:Re:have our local police abdicated all responsibility? | |
| Posted by: | Cllr Sam Hearn | |
| Date/Time: | 29/07/21 19:22:00 |
| "Eleven years of police cuts and local station closures." The situation is more complicated than that. Met Police numbers fell from 33,367 in 2010 to 30,398 in 2013. Since then police numbers have either been roughly the same year on year or rising. In 2020 the Met Police employed 32,958 and additional funding for police officers was promised by the Mayor in 2021 (1,300 more officer?) Surprisingly, in the year with lowest number of police officers the rate of crime per head of the London population was at its lowest in the last eleven years (77.5 crimes per 1,000 Londoners). Since 2015/16 the number of crimes per head of population has been rising steadily - despite the number of policemen either rising or staying roughly the same. There is no direct correlation between the overall crime rate and the number of police officers. However, over the same eleven years the population of London has increased and the number of police officer per 1,000 Londoners has declined significantly from 4.1 police officers per 1,000 Londoners to 3.1. The closure of police stations began under Mayor Boris and has continued under Mayor Sadiq. This is an emotive issue and any discussion of the merits of such closures needs to be conducted calmly and rationally. I well understand that the existence of a large building in the heart of the community with a big blue police sign on it is psychological comforting but in reality what additional security or protection to bricks and mortar provide? As senior police officers confirmed at the two pre-covid public meetings held to discuss local policing (organised by local councillors) police response times to serious incidents had actually improved slightly since the Tri-Borough policing arrangement had been introduced and the front desk at Chiswick Police Station closed. Community police need to be out and visible in our wards and not sitting in a police station waiting for something to happen. Rapid Response teams need to be on the road during evenings and early mornings - patrolling areas where intelligence sources tell them they need to be. One of the benefits of the closure of police stations is that officers are equipped with electronic tablets and can complete their reports almost anywhere. There are other operational efficiencies that have been made - some no doubt painful but as some officers have confided in me most were long over due. The comment that one contributor has made on this thread about the police all being thugs (or something like that) hardly deserves a response but .... I suspect he does not know any police officers personally. I know two police officers personally. One is a fine young man who grew up in Chiswick and is helping police London. He is someone any parent could be proud of. The other is of course Cllr John Todd a retired member of the City of London Police. Most would say one of Hounslow's consistently most hard working and conscientious councillors. Please let no one attack me for saying that "everything in the garden is rosy". I know that policing London is not easy and that new problems emerge every week to challenge all of us and those who work so hard to protect us - the police. Data Source - see link below https://www.statista.com/statistics/864928/officer-numbers-of-the-metropolitan-police/ |