Allowing officer numbers to fall is “atrocious”

ALLOWING police officer numbers in England and Wales to drop below 100,000 would be “atrocious” and leave the police in serious danger of not being able to provide a service to the public.

Neil Bowles, Chairman of South Yorkshire Police Federation, said such a drop in numbers would “take us back to the pre-1970s – and look how much crime and population have changed since then”. 

Police and crime commissioners across England and Wales fear that police officer numbers will fall below 100,000 by 2019/20 and that criminals will feel safer as a result.

In a submission ahead of the Government’s 2015 Comprehensive Spending Review – coming in November – the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners said that “budget cuts will radically change policing”.

Mr Bowles (pictured) said: “It’s absolutely ridiculous to the think that our staffing levels will drop that low. Our officers are getting assaulted left, right and centre, up and down the country.

“The Government need to wake up and smell the coffee.

“The dangers are the fact that we just won’t be able to bring a proper investigation together. I mean, I’ve already heard a DCI talking about murder cases, we can’t afford to do a house-to-house enquiry, they’re just going to do a letter drop instead.

“The whole quality of investigation is just going to drop. You’re not going to see officers on the street, you’re not going to get your burglary seen to immediately. It’s just atrocious.”

Mr Bowles added: “I think the government have started to believe their own mantra that’s coming out of the Home Office, that crime is down, police reform’s working, more front line services are protected. We all know that it’s a load of rubbish.

“Crime isn’t down, it’s rising and I’ve said all along it doesn’t include the fraud figures that apparently are just about to be included. Cyber crime, All sorts of things aren’t included, minor pubic order traffic offences.

“I’ve just seen the figures for our demand over the last three years, it hasn’t altered one iota whether crime’s dropped or hasn’t. We still get the same demand in through the call centres.”