I read with interest, and increasing concern, the item in last month’s edition, “Policing – are we at increasing risk?” My answer is yes to all three of the questions that are posed in the first paragraph.
The statistics quoted made sombre reading, as did the comment that police forces themselves feel that they do not have sufficient resources to adequately deal with what is now called “low- level crimes,” any more. The most cogent point made was that the policing problems are “all down to one thing – and that is money.”
Budget cuts to police forces have been of such magnitude that our very safety in the home and out in public is at stake. This is demoralising for the police themselves. It also represents the negation of the basic responsibility of any democratically elected government – to protect and safeguard the lives of its citizens.”
We need to have a significant presence of police on the streets, in patrol cars going up and down roads and generally being “visible.” This is all the more so in areas where crimes are at their highest and not just temporarily when something happens. Policing acts as a deterrent and is decidedly preferably to investigating those that have already been committed.
Stephen Miller, Hertfordshire
