.
‘Stop the Rot’ is a report by the Chief Inspector of Constabulary, Sir Denis O’Connor, who says that keeping the peace has been relegated to a ‘second-order consideration’ and that the removal of officers from streets has fuelled antisocial behaviour. I think that many of us have realised this for some time.
Sir Denis is our top police watchdog and so his views need to be taken very seriously by the Home Office and every police authority around the country. In what he calls a 30-year ‘retreat from the streets’, millions of acts of drunken loutishness and vandalism have gone unreported as they have become ‘normalised’.
In an HMIC report last July, it was disclosed that just eleven percent of officers were visible and available to the public at any one time. In this report, Sir Denis repeats his fear that front-line officers would be the first to go if spending cuts bit into police budgets, and reminds the government that what the public want is ‘boots on the ground’.
The new Home Secretary said: ‘This report, yet again, shows that for too long this problem has been sidelined and victims, especially those who are vulnerable, have been let down.’
What she hasn’t said is what the government are going to do about the situation.
.
‘Stop the Rot’ is a report by the Chief Inspector of Constabulary, Sir Denis O’Connor, who says that keeping the peace has been relegated to a ‘second-order consideration’ and that the removal of officers from streets has fuelled antisocial behaviour. I think that many of us have realised this for some time.
Sir Denis is our top police watchdog and so his views need to be taken very seriously by the Home Office and every police authority around the country. In what he calls a 30-year ‘retreat from the streets’, millions of acts of drunken loutishness and vandalism have gone unreported as they have become ‘normalised’.
In an HMIC report last July, it was disclosed that just eleven percent of officers were visible and available to the public at any one time. In this report, Sir Denis repeats his fear that front-line officers would be the first to go if spending cuts bit into police budgets, and reminds the government that what the public want is ‘boots on the ground’.
The new Home Secretary said: ‘This report, yet again, shows that for too long this problem has been sidelined and victims, especially those who are vulnerable, have been let down.’
What she hasn’t said is what the government are going to do about the situation.
.
No comments:
Post a Comment