Demand: Increase in crimes per officer ‘no surprise’,

FIGURES showing that the number of crimes per number of police officers are rising have come as ‘no surprise’ to Essex Police Federation, who says the force is having prioritise call outs thanks to cuts.

Chairman Steve Taylor said Essex cops are having to do more with less and that the College of Policing stats showing there are 51 crimes for every officer in England and Wales, was clear evidence of that.

The figure has gone up from 35 crimes being committed for every officer in 2013/14.

“It comes as no surprise whatsoever,” Steve said.

“It’s not all that widely known but there is work going on to prioritise what we will and won’t attend.

“For example, Friday afternoon concerns for welfares from partners in Social Services or other elements. Those are perennial issues that we’ve always faced, them passing the risk to us over the weekend.

“There’s a lot of work going on to stem that kind of call for our service. More low-level commercial crime, making off without payment from petrol stations are a good example.

“We’ve tried to reduce the number of those that require our attention. Action fraud is another area where we’ve tried to prioritise.

“There’s a whole work stream in Essex, the Demand Management Group, which two of our ACCs run, are all aimed at reducing demand as well as supporting us with demand that we can’t reduce – mobile technologies and the like.

“There’s lot of work goes on in this area in Essex trying to redress the balance.”

It’s a mystery why the Government has not taken more notice of the serious challenges facing officers on the street, Steve added.

“It is depressingly the norm now under this Prime Minister who has turned her face against policing, accuses us of crying wolf and then forgets she even said it.

“We told her that cuts will have consequences and she didn’t listen, and they’re not listening now. They don’t listen to us on pay review, they don’t listen to us when it comes to changes in legislation and the like.

“It’s so disappointing. The reasons for it I don’t know why. As part of overall spending policing is miniscule, and yet a little can go a real long way. We’re evidencing how, when you have cut us to the bone as you have, what slips through the cracks is the suffering of the people, suffering more crime, suffering more hardship as a result of the Government’s inability to adequately fund policing.

“Only recently we’re hearing about colleagues in the Metropolitan Police who are not being supported in dealing with violent people and are having to let them go or contemplating having to let them go.

“With the tone of the video and the comments it got – is it any wonder that society reflects itself that way when we have nothing but disdain and disrespect from the Government?”