in 2010 Theresa May (as home secretary) agreed to a Treasury demand to cut police budgets by 18%. over the next five years the number of police officers in England and Wales fell from a peak of 144,353 in 2009 to 122,859 in 2016. specialist armed police officers has fallen from a peak of 6,796 in 2010 to 5,639 in 2016.
sin what country should a police force publicly admit it would stop investigating some lower-level crimes to save £400m by 2020? ours, apparently, because the state of the police forces across the country - with counter closures in London, and cuts to Norfolk PCSOs - means that money is prioritised over public safety.
then amber rudd, our home secretary, publicly states PCCS should take responsibility for cutting crime in their areas rather than “lobbying the Government for money”.
“When crime stats go up, I don’t just want to see you reaching for a pen to write a press release asking for more money from the Government,” she added. "We appreciate that the increase in complex, investigatory work has put pressure on forces, as well as the efforts to deal with the unprecedented wave of terrorist attacks we’ve sadly seen this year. But police financial reserves now amount to more than £1.6bn and the independent inspectorate remains clear that there is more forces can do to transform, with greater efficiencies still available.” her own party's decisions, of course, being the exact thing she condemns.
even loving ukip has condemned this, and they're a loving joke.
sI don't see any point on blaming this on anything other than the conservative party itself. this could have been prevented.
