Home Secretary today announced he is
allocating an immediate £51 million for police forces to
strengthen their response to serious violence.
The surge funding for forces worst affected by these crimes will
enable them to bolster their operational activities. It will help
them fund increased patrols and weapon sweeps, equipment for
officers and overtime.
The additional investment comes from the £100 million serious
violence fund announced by the government in March as part of its
continued efforts to crackdown on violent crime.
Home Secretary said:
Knife crime destroys lives and as Home Secretary I’m determined
to do everything in my power to stamp it out.
This funding will help the police forces worst affected by
violent crime to up their response, including by increasing the
number of officers out on the streets over the Easter weekend.
The police are on the front line in the fight against serious
violence and they have our full support.
National Police Chiefs’ Council Chair Martin Hewitt said:
The announcement of additional funding for the most affected
police forces to tackle violence is welcome.
This will help forces to carry out activity that we know works,
such as increasing the number of officers available to carry
out targeted patrols in crime hotspots and increase our use of
stop and search.
Chief constables in these areas will now consider how best to
use their additional resources.
Police tactics alone will not prevent violence however and any
solutions must involve government, education, health, social
services and communities themselves.
It will be for chief constables to decide how to utilise the
additional funding, but the money is intended to be used to
support visible policing in hotspot areas. Funding is being
allocated to 18 forces in England and Wales, and a full list of
forces and the funding they have received will be published in
due course.
The Home Office will work closely with the police to monitor and
assess the impact of the funding, including improving the quality
of data returns on serious violence and knife crime in
particular.
Around a third of the serious violence fund will support the
setting up of violence reduction units (VRUs) and other preventative
activity across the country. VRUs are a multi-agency
approach bringing together police, health, local government, and
community representatives to tackle violent crime and its
underlying causes.
The remaining money will be allocated in due course and will be
used to support forces who see an escalation in violence during
the year and to increase capacity in the policing system.
Today’s announcement follows a speech by the Home
Secretary on Monday in which he called for a shift in
mindset to tackle the spike in knife crime. called on all parts of
government to work together to eradicate violence, building on
the government’s serious violence strategy and the Prime
Minister’s serious youth violence summit in Downing Street this
month. The summit brought together more than 100 attendees from a
diverse range of backgrounds - including young people with
experience living in communities impacted by serious violence,
law enforcement, the voluntary sector and health and education
experts - to explore what more we can do as a whole society to
tackle knife crime.
On 1 April, the first day of the summit, the government began a
consultation on a new legal duty to support a multi-agency or
‘public health’ approach to preventing and tackling serious
violence.
