A long period of austerity and budget cuts in UK policing has had
a considerable negative impact on the size of police forces,
hitting those outside London particularly hard, a new election
analysis from the Centre for Economic Performance at LSE reported
today.
Violent crime has risen in England and Wales after decades of
falls, just as austerity hit police forces. This could explain
why crime is moving up the list of voters’ priorities, now ranked
the third most important issue.
“All parties have pledged to recruit tens of thousands of new
officers. But given the recent hiring freeze, as well as 23,000
officers expected to retire or leave the police force over the
next three years, it is not clear whether this target is
achievable,” said the report’s author Professor Tom Kirchmaier.
He added “A simple focus on officers might not be enough to
address the additional resources needed by the entire policing
‘ecosystem’.
The report further finds:
- Policing and crime have quickly moved up the list of
electoral concerns, with crime being ranked the third most
important issue behind Brexit and the NHS in a recent public
survey.
- All three main parties have pledged to invest in policing,
promising to hire around 20,000 additional police officers. This
will be difficult to achieve and is likely to put considerable
strain on police forces to deliver on that target.
- If this recruitment occurs, it will end a long period of
austerity including budget cuts in policing that has considerably
reduced the size of UK police forces, hitting those outside
London particularly hard.
- As austerity bit and budget cuts were implemented, violent
crime rose in England and Wales after decades of falls. Rising
knife crime is particularly prominent.
- If deployed efficiently, there is scope for the additional
officers to reduce crime. The effect may vary across places, as
larger cities are more difficult to police.
- Consideration needs to be given to the overall operations of
the criminal justice system, in particular if and how it would be
able to deal with the extra workload generated by additional
police officers.
The full report is available here: CEP Election
Analysis: Policing
and Crime
Notes for editors:
Tom Kirchmaier is director of the Policing and Crime research
group at the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School
of Economics, and Professor of Risk and Regulation at the
Copenhagen Business School.
CEP election analysis: Policing and crime is one in a series of
election briefings produced by the Centre for
Economic Performance, LSE. The series aims to provide an
impartial, evidence-based analysis of the key issues in the 2019
UK general election including education, health and social care,
social mobility, immigration, the labour market and regional
policy.
