ESSEX Police is having to make difficult decisions over suspending neighbourhood policing as a result of there being 600 fewer police officers to deploy.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the view of Mark Smith, Chairman of Essex Police Federation, who was reacting after the HMIC criticised the force for halting neighbourhood policing for six weeks last summer in the north of the county to deal with a backlog of other crimes.<\/p>\n
The Federation supports the Chief Constable\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n
Mr Smith said: \u201cThe Chief Constable makes operational policing decisions and made a decision that he needed his resources elsewhere. That\u2019s what he believed he needed and that\u2019s what he was being advised to do, then he has to do it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis again is the consequence of cuts. We\u2019re drifting towards responding to 999 calls only, and if the Chief has had to do that in Essex and pull officers away from a certain area for a certain period of time, then that\u2019s his decision.\u201d<\/p>\n
Phil Suarez, Secretary of Essex Police Federation, told PoliceOracle.com: \u201cIt comes down to a choice \u2013 do you want officers responding to violent domestic incidents or do you want officers available to respond to anti-social behaviour? Obviously none of it is acceptable, but in areas where you have to judge risk, stark choices have to be made.\u201d<\/p>\n
And he added: \u201cPolice resources have shrunk, and leaders of the force are trying to do the best they can with ever shrinking resources.\u201d<\/p>\n
Essex PCC Nick Alston said he was \u201csurprised and disappointed I was not informed\u201d.<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cOn local policing, my position is clear. With the resources available to Essex Police, it is not possible to operate a model of \u2018bobbies on the beat\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut local, neighbourhood, community policing \u2013 use whichever name you like \u2013 is an absolutely core function of a police service.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ESSEX Police is having to make difficult decisions over suspending neighbourhood policing as a result of there being 600 fewer police officers to deploy. That\u2019s the view of Mark Smith,\u2026 read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2649,"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\/2653"}],"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=2653"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2653\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2698,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2653\/revisions\/2698"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}