POLICING needs to have proper financial investment to reverse a worrying increase in crime figures.<\/p>\n
That is the view of South Yorkshire Police Federation Chairman Steve Kent, who was speaking after the publication of the latest crime statistics.<\/p>\n
The latest Office of National Statistics figures reveal there has been a 13% increase in violent crime in the region from 2017 to 2018. Drug offences are also up 16%.<\/p>\n
Steve said the increases were not surprising given the swingeing cuts policing has had to endure over the past decade.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cIt\u2019s an inevitability of having officers cut and budgets cut, but there just needs to be a wholesale change in attitude from central Government.<\/p>\n
\u201cPolicing needs to be reinvested in and, as with knife crime, our partner agencies need to have some investment as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we can all work together on it then it will hopefully change the landscape. But we need to see a massive investment in policing and to go back to the old days of the old funding, which I think the public now would broadly support and want.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, the fear remains that the Government will continue to play politics with policing, Steve added.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey need to be [investing] billions not millions from the bottom upwards,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n