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Police officers could become less visible on the streets because police forces aren't managing their budgets properly in the face of funding cuts, warns a report by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary, covered in The Telegraph.
The report says:
Policing in five years' time is likely to look different to now: smaller, less costly and perhaps less visible.
Roger Grimshaw questions why the police are calling for more stop and search activity to reduce knife crime.
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.
Police officers are concerned their work won’t get picked up by other struggling public services, argues Richard Garside. But that’s for politicians to deal with.
Politics and controversy have dogged the outgoing Police Scotland Chief Constable Stephen House, former Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill MSP writes. His successor should come from within Police Scotland.
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:
Despite recent controversy over Police Scotland, its creation was long overdue, argues former Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill MSP.
