THE new Prime Minister must adopt a new approach to policing to reverse \u2018decimating\u2019 years of cuts, South Yorkshire Police Federation has warned.<\/p>\n
At the time of publication, Conservative MPs Jeremy Hunt and Boris Johnson were locked in a battle for the right to become the next Prime Minister.<\/p>\n
Former candidate Sajid Javid vowed to find 20,000 more officers for the beat, a figure matched in by Johnson in his electoral manifesto.<\/p>\n
Whoever takes the top job, South Yorkshire Police Federation Chairman Steve Kent wants them to have a different attitude to policing than that adopted by their predecessor Theresa May.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cI would like to think that the new leader of the country will have a different attitude to the one that Theresa May had, who seemed to be hell-bent on the destruction of the police.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would like to see a fresh approach. Sajid Javid was correct \u2013 we need 20,000 officers back in this country to reflect the losses that we had and to deal with growing crime.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Government must pledge how they\u2019re going to grow the police, whether it will be gradual or not, and I just want to see a complete and utter attitude change towards policing so we can begin to repair the damage.<\/p>\n
\u201cEssentially, the last decade has decimated us, and we need to start going back up that hill.<\/p>\n
\u201cSouth Yorkshire is recruiting an extra 200 officers, but we\u2019ve gone down from 3,000 to under 2,500, so there\u2019s still a hell of a lot more work needs to be done.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor that [to happen] money needs to come from central Government, and that needs to be part of a national pledge to drive policing numbers back up.\u201d<\/p>\n