CUTS to policing budgets have left the police service decimated, officers run ragged and public safety in jeopardy,\u00a0the Chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales has told the Government .<\/p>\n
Steve White addressed the Home Secretary at the Federation\u2019s annual conference in Bournemouth this week. He said\u00a0\u201cenough is enough\u201d after it emerged that 30 out of 43 forces are downgrading or reviewing neighbourhood policing teams.<\/p>\n
Mr White said: \u201cCuts have consequences and quite simply, we can do no more. This week we will be discussing what the consequences have been to the service, but more importantly, we will be looking ahead to the dire potential outcomes if things do not change. The dire outcome for officers; and most importantly for the public.\u201d<\/p>\n
He told the Home Secretary: \u201cWe are telling it like it is. Scaremongering? Well, if the public aren\u2019t scared, perhaps they\u00a0would be if they knew just how few cops were on the night shift while they slept last night. So if you genuinely care about policing, if you genuinely care about the security of the citizen of this country, listen to us.\u201d<\/p>\n
The equivalent of nine police forces have already been wiped off the map, the conference heard: 17,000 police officers and 16,000 members of police staff have gone since 2010.<\/p>\n
Mr White added: \u201cWe are not shying away from making the public aware of what they have lost so for. Making them aware of what they will lose in the future if police cuts continue. We are not shying away from saying how police officers \u2013 ordinary people doing an extraordinary job \u2013 have been pushed to the absolute limit. Run ragged. Jeopardising their own health and wellbeing. Trying to do more for the public with far less.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr White described a generation of young people growing up never seeing their local police officers unless they fall victim to crime and a \u201cremote and faceless\u201d police service.<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cHome Secretary, cuts have consequences. Some are easily seen and measured, many are not. The paradox is that the better the job the police do, the less necessary they appear. We are the goalkeepers of the criminal justice system \u2013 and you don\u2019t drop the goalie because the team isn\u2019t letting in goals.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
CUTS to policing budgets have left the police service decimated, officers run ragged and public safety in jeopardy,\u00a0the Chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales has told the\u2026 read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1985,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1984"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1984"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1984\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1987,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1984\/revisions\/1987"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}