Police need to get their priorities right and start tackling crime - Bill Carmichael

The chances of an officer visiting your home to begin an investigation are remote, and the chances of a successful prosecution of the culprit are even smaller.As for the stolen items, officers often recommend that the victims of crime go to the local pawn shop or car boot sale on the off-chance they can buy back their own property.According to a new report released this week by the Policy Exchange think tank, the ability of modern police to solve crime is “woefully low”, with just 3.5 per cent of residential burglaries, 6.3 per cent of robberies and 4.1 per cent of thefts solved during the past year.As a result these common crimes, which make the lives of law-abiding citizens a misery, are “in essence almost entirely decriminalised” says the report’s author, who concludes that policing “has lost its way”.The police will defend themselves by saying they “don’t have the resources” to investigate crime, but this, I’m afraid, is total nonsense.There are plenty of resources when it comes to promoting the latest fashionable cause or dressing up male officers in high heels and nail varnish.If you make a mildly disobliging comment on social media you can expect half a dozen officers to be hammering at your door and dragging you off in handcuffs, as happened recently to an army veteran in Hampshire.There was no lack of resources for that operation, was there? The police also waste an inordinate amount of time and money investigating “non-crime hate incidents”. If it isn’t a crime, it is none of the police’s business, and there is plenty of actual real crime to keep them busy should they be bothered.The problem here is a matter not of money but of priorities, and the sad fact is the modern police no longer see preventing and detecting crime as their most important function.This has led to a catastrophic decline in confidence in the police among the public. The Policy Exchange report points out that the public were almost twice as likely to agree than disagree with the statement “the police are more interested in being woke than solving crimes”.Incidentally, the study was written not by some academic egghead, but by David Spencer, a former detective inspector with the Metropolitan Police who successfully reversed increasing robbery and burglary rates when he was posted to the London borough of Waltham Forest. So he knows what he is talking about.The report says the police should avoid such acts as “taking the knee” or wearing the badges of campaign groups on their uniform.These acts could be interpreted as having “a partisan political view” that has the potential “to be hugely damaging to public confidence”, writes Mr Spencer.Most senior officers are not stupid, and I am sure they can see this, but they go along with all the trendy twaddle because that is the only way you will be promoted these days.The report recommends that the Home Secretary should use their powers to reform failing police forces and replace the chief constable if necessary.It also says that regulations should be urgently amended to allow police chiefs to dismiss officers found guilty of criminality or serious misconduct.And it recommends that tackling online crime, such as fraud and the sexual grooming of children, should be given a higher priority.It calls for the replacement of the College of Policing with a new Leadership Academy and an overhaul of police training.In one shocking section the report reveals that 20 per cent of frontline police time is spent resolving incidents involving people with mental health issues, and this problem is getting worse.The number of occasions that individuals were detained in England and Wales under the Mental Health Act increased by 28 per cent between 2016 and 2021. Once detained a person can be held for 24 hours awaiting an assessment by a mental health professional. Police officers are required to wait for that assessment to take place, often in hospital Accident and Emergency waiting rooms, before they can return to other duties. Officers report spending significant amounts of time waiting for these assessments, and in some cases the 24-hour time limit expires before an assessment can take place.Surely, this system can be tweaked to stop this waste of time while still protecting public safety?One thing is clear – policing is in a mess. One third of officers in England and Wales currently serve in forces that are in “special measures” because of poor performance. This is a terrible indictment of British policing.