Policing Must Be About Quality Not Quantity
POLICING must be about quality not quantity, South Yorkshire Police Federation has warned, after the latest HMICFRS report was critical about forces’ response to serious acquisitive crime.
A Peel Spotlight report published last month, praised good practice at South Yorkshire Police, but was critical of the national response to burglary, robbery and theft.
Steve Kent, South Yorkshire Police Federation Chair, warned: “Speaking nationally, we absolutely focus on quality rather than quantity. There are too many HMIC measuring parameters that are talking about outcomes and response times, and getting to people quickly and this and that.
“That’s not what this is about. We can’t be running around fighting little fires. We’ve got to sit back, take a bit of time, and deal with the job properly. Officers, quite simply, don’t have the time to do their jobs properly at the moment, as it stands, because of resourcing and because of a misplaced performance culture.”
The report found that forces “lack investigative capacity and capability to effectively tackle burglary, robbery and theft, often because of the national detective shortage and inexperience”.
Steve added: “We should not be measuring policing on statistics. We should be measuring policing on satisfaction of the victims and the people we deal with. I’m sure victims would rather wait a day or two longer to see a police officer and have 100% really, really good service than a quick knock on a door, before they rush to the next one.
“This is not a criticism of our force, because our force does so much with so little. It’s not a criticism of our officers. They’re just having to bounce from job to job, whereas actually we need to sit back, keep on investing in neighbourhood policing and get the benefit of that, and actually sit back and deal with these problems.”
To see the report in full, go to: https://www.