police

The Met police attracted criticism after sending a letter to 24 young people in Brent - all believed to be black - demanding they attend a community meeting or be treated like law-breakers, The Guardian reports. The 'gang call-in' letter was sent on 19 August following a stabbing in the area.

The prospect of further big cuts to police budgets and officer numbers is beginning to force a discussion about what the role of the police should be and what services they should provide. This is something we've been talking about with people for some time.

Slashing police budgets provides us with the opportunity to rebalance public policy, writes our Director Richard Garside in an article appearing in The Guardian today.

The generous police spending settlements of the last Labour government fuelled police mission creep into almost all areas of public service, crowding out other responses to a range of social problems, Richard argues. 

The ongoing decline in police numbers presents us with an opportunity to rebalance public policy, our director Richard Garside writes in a letter published in today's Guardian.

A decade of generous police budgets up to the 2010 General Election, Richard argues, was 'disastrous for a balanced approach to public policy':

Sir Peter Fahy, Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police has called for 'a new approach' in responding to vulnerable and missing teenagers. He emphasised the need to protect children, but questioned whether the police are best placed to do this, reports BBC News.

Speaking to BBC News at Ten, he raised the question of whether we need more social workers and fewer police officers. He said:

Police use of Tasers in England and Wales has risen by half over the last five years according to Home Office figures released yesterday. In total Tasers were used 10,062 times in 2014, compared to 6,649 times in 2010.