Stop the spin and give us officers

Saying that a rise in violent crime is not down to a cut in officer numbers is just ‘spin’.

That’s the view of South Yorkshire Police Federation Chair Zuleika Payne who says officers are just getting platitudes rather than the resources they need to do the job.

Nationally, violent crime is up by 20%, while knife crime has risen by 21% over the past year.

Remaining unconvinced, Zuleika  is infuriated by the Government’s continued stance that falling officer numbers are not to blame.

“There’s been a lot of spin put out around crime levels and the drop in officer numbers,” she said.

“It’s a real sense of them using the figures however they want to.

“We should consider what violent crime levels were looking like when the cut in officer numbers really started to bite, you could actually anticipate them being much higher.

“In essence these is a suggestion that with fewer officers you would expect even higher levels so these rising figures are nothing to do with falling officer numbers and even more worrying is the notion that we don’t need more officers on the streets when we clearly do.

“That’s the big concern overall – they just don’t make any link to crime and officer numbers, it’s an excuse not to make any significant investments in policing. The officers I represent are working tirelessly, day and day out, to keep out communities safe. However, we need to see long term, sustainable policing solutions.”

Zuleika says she and her members are still frustrated by the lack of increase in officer numbers in South Yorkshire.

“We have around 2,400 officers and as a force we have so many issues to contend with,” she said.

“We are hypervigilant and risk averse as a force and we’re out there trying to do a really thorough job, but there is so much pressure on everyone, it’s incredibly frustrating.”