Demanding More Police

The numbers of police officers in the Devon and Cornwall force have been on a downward spiral. Senior officers complain about rule A19 under the terms of which they cannot serve for more than 30 years. I see the injustice inherent in such an approach but that is not what I am talking about in this instance. Frontline policing in Devon and Cornwall is under threat. Bobbies on the beat are under threat.  At this rate our police force will end up like the Royal Navy where they have more admirals than ships. Over the past 12 months numbers of serving officers in the Devon and Cornwall force are down by 6%.

Meanwhile crime levels are on the increase. Now this is no national trend. Crime figures nationally are in decline. This is a phenomenon almost unique to Devon and Cornwall. In Devon and Cornwall, not only are crime figures on the increase, they are on the increase by a proportion that exactly mirrors the decline in police numbers. Crime is up by 6% whilst police numbers are down by 6%. To be precise, in the year to March 2012, Home Office figures showed officer numbers down by over 200, a 6.1% drop alongside a 6% increase in recorded crime, the largest in Britain. And further cutbacks mean that by 2015 seven hundred officers will have gone, a fifth of the force.

Why should this be? Well clearly the most important factor is cuts forced upon the police by the government’s Comprehensive Spending Review. And the other is incompetent management of the police. The Devon and Cornwall Police Authority has been virtually dysfunctional for some considerable time, failing to even have a chief constable in place for quite a period. This lack of leadership evidently takes its toll.

Safe streets mean freedom from fear, the entitlement of each and every man, woman and child on the planet. But though it does not always directly impact the crime figures, the increase in disorderly behaviour is evident everywhere. What makes a difference to the crime figures is increased levels of theft in the South West. In part this is a consequence of economic decline because of under investment in the region. Poverty clearly matters. But so does fewer Bobbies on the beat. We do not even have the manpower to spare for proper liaison with community groups. One Neighbourhood Watch group in Exeter told me this week that they had yet to see any police liaison and had been told nobody was available for the foreseeable future.

Our priorities have to include delivering more frontline policing. At the moment there are insufficient police to deliver follow up on many important cases. Resources are stretched and the impact on police morale and public confidence is evident.

We also need less police bureaucracy. This is hard to deliver as it’s a nationwide issue but it is one on which the newly elected Police and Crime Commissioner must speak out. Inordinate levels of paperwork mean that each minor arrest results in a day spent in the office behind a desk form filling. It never used to be like this.

One absolute commitment I make to you: Once elected I will fight tooth and nail to restore front line Police numbers in Devon and Cornwall. We cannot and must not allow this decline to continue.