Policing | Russell Webster

Police don’t understand the impact of cuts

£2.3 billion was cut from police budgets in the five years since 2010/11 – a cut of between 12% and 23% for individual police forces. These figures are from the recent (4 June 2015) National Audit Office report: “Financial sustainability of police forces in England and Wales”. NAO reports are invaluable, in my opinion, because the organisation has no political axe to grind and merely examines costs and performance as fairly as possible.

8th June 2015

Recorded drug offences down 11%

The ONS report makes it clear that the number of drug offences recorded by the police is heavily dependent on police activities and priorities. Changes in the number of offences are more likely to reflect changes in the policing of drug crime, rather than real changes in the number of drug offences.

15th May 2015

The world’s first Space Detective Agency

New technologies present new opportunities for law enforcement agencies to catch and prosecute criminals – from Smartphones that can report themselves stolen to the increasingly sophisticated police use of social media for gathering intelligence, investigating crimes and establishing evidence. The Air and Space Evidence Agency uses satellite imagery to assist criminal investigations.

24th April 2015

How much crime do we solve?

There were six outcomes in the detections framework prior to April 2013, nine from April 2013 to March 2014 and from April 2014 there are a total of 19. This expansion in the number of outcomes follows a public consultation which aimed to make the recording of crime outcomes more transparent and reliable.

23rd March 2015

The Modern Bounty Hunter

As the English and Welsh probation service is currently being privatised via the Government’s Transforming Rehabilitation initiative, here is a quick reminder of just how much the criminal justice system is privatised in other parts of the world.

20th March 2015

Property crime takes its toll

I’m not convinced that harsher penalties are necessarily the most effective response to minor thefts. Even when these offences are committed by an organised crime group, those doing the actual stealing are unlikely to be those making the most profit. However, fully resourced Safer Neighbourhood Teams were, in my opinion, the single most important and effective policing development of the last 40 years – whether full funding can be restored in 2015 does, however, seem unlikely.

19th March 2015

Why has crime fallen?

New analysis undertaken by the report’s authors idntified the ageing population, changes in income and decreased alcohol consumption as factors reducing crime.A review of past research indicated that consumer confidence and inflation also seem to have contributed to crime reduction.

18th March 2015

Legal protection from domestic violence

The infographic provides an outline of the different types of abuse, the scale of the problem – along with some myths debunked and the legal action which can be taken against the perpetrators. The key message is that there are now many agencies which can support victims of domestic abuse to take legal and practical steps to end their abuse.

6th March 2015