UK Policing Reform

At its core, UK policing is still largely based on 19th and 20th Century traditions, structure and thinking.  It needs to be modernised in order to reflect the huge changes seen in recent decades in society, culture, technology, communications, education and resources.  

We also have an obligation to ensure the most efficient and effective use of the huge amount of public funds spent by and on behalf of UK policing, as much of it currently appears to be ineffectively used.

According to Labour Party research, over 90% of crimes are left unsolved.  Total arrests have more than halved since 2010, including a 40% drop in arrests for theft; serious violence and knife crime offences are up by 70% since 2015.  

Given that the number of reported crimes is far lower than actual crimes committed, this does beg the question “what is the purpose of UK policing?”
 

This is a public service that costs just under £20bn a year but is failing on its core purpose.  Without effective police outputs the further £13bn a year (net) spent on prisons, courts and legal aid is compromised as well.  Purely from a financial perspective it would be cheaper to disband all police and justice institutions and simply pay compensation to victims of crime!  

Conservative real terms budget cuts have given us a massive organisation that doesn’t have the funding and resources to be effective.  Either funding needs to materially increase, or we need to streamline the bureaucracy and structure to overhaul the service and re-focus it on core goals and delivery.  Since the former is extremely difficult to achieve with all the competing demands on the public purse, the SPP believes that the latter approach is now needed.