4
Nov
2015
By Calvin at 15:38 GMT, 10 years ago
While I was away on holiday police budget cuts have been in the news a great deal. The latest of the Chiefs to have their say is Lancashire Constabulary’s Chief Constable, Steve Finnigan, who warned that plans to cut a further £24.5m from his budget would make policing the area unviable and could make it very difficult to keep local people safe.
This echoes the Met Commissioner, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe’s, warning in mid October that planned funding cuts are so large they would endanger the safety of the public. He said the Met would lose £1bn by 2020 and shrink to levels last seen in the 1970s.
On the National Police Chief’s Council website you’ll also see that they are talking about compulsory severance for officers. In all my 32 years of police service I’ve never heard such serious talk from the Chiefs.
If these latest cuts go ahead, and I have no reason to think that the Government will change its mind, policing is going to fundamentally change. Unless you live in a crime hotspot I doubt you will ever see a police officer on the beat and don’t be surprised if there are even more occasions when the police won’t be able to come out to victims of property crimes, such as burglary.
At least at the moment certain crime categories are continuing to fall or stay flat and much of this is as a result of reduced opportunity to commit crime, because people like you have taken extra precautions to ensure that your property and your home is not vulnerable.
With far fewer police and PCSOs on the beat in the future it is vital that even more of us take action ourselves to prevent crime and it is especially important that we do not create the opportunity for those unnecessary crimes to take place.
Source Independent: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/police-cuts-chief-constable-hits-out-at-madness-of-funding-reforms-as-pressure-mounts-on-home-office-a6720221.html
What are those unnecessary crimes? Take a look at my list! http://thecrimepreventionwebsite.com/home-security-assessment/736/opportunity-for-crime/
