Why the UK Government Should Spend More Money on Policing

The United Kingdom has been reducing the funds set aside for policing for the last few years, and due to this, the policing department has experienced so many problems which have affected their service delivery to the people of the United Kingdom. The problems witnessed explicitly by the law enforcement agencies were due to the reduced amounts of funds that are set aside to policing. Due to the following reasons, the United Kingdom’s government should consider setting aside more funds for policing to ensure adequate protection of the United Kingdom’s citizens. They include; severe stress undergone by police officers when conducting their duties, deteriorating values of the services delivery by the constabularies, amplified criminality rates, sustainability of essential crime squad services and improved training to police officers to enable them to handle hidden vulnerability crimes.

To Reduce Service Stress

Although the law enforcement agency has not failed financially, it has a hard time to ensure effective delivery of services to the people of the United Kingdom. This is seen as the time take for an officer to be able to charge a single offence has increased from 14 days to 18 days or more this has been witnessed from the period between March 2016 and March 2018 thus there has been too much pressure that has been put on the forces to meet the expected demands of the policing department (Comptroller and Auditor General 2018). The pressure experienced by the law enforcement agency was attributed to the rising numbers of high harm crimes like sexual-related felonies, amplified threats of terrorism which are very expensive to investigate. Due to the nature of the offences that the UK is facing and the inadequate funds set aside for policing, to enable the policing departments to perform their duties effectively and without putting too much stress on the available officers, the United Kingdom should consider spending more funds on policing to enable it to add the number of officers and to speed up the process of bringing offenders to book.

To Improve Service Delivery

United Kingdom’s government has plans to lessen the funds set aside to the police forces by nearly £700m; this will affect the service delivery of the police force significantly. The reduced funding will force the police force to reduce the number of officers on its payroll by approximately 20000 officers leaving only 120, 217 police officers in the whole of UK (The Guardian 2017). When comparing the size of the country with the number of police officers, this implies that a single officer will be expected to protect a vast area which will lead to poor service delivery. With the reduced number of police officers and the increasing crime rates especially terrorism, the country will be left without proper means to handle, investigate and protect itself and its citizens against such impending dangers. Thus for the UK to protect its citizens and enable the police to deliver their services effectively adding more funds to policing should be considered.

To Reduce the Increasing Crime Rates

One of the main reasons that should urge the United Kingdom to allocate more funds to policing is the increasing crime rates. According to the inspectorate in the last year there has been a significant increase in the crime rate of a record of 11% increase. This was seen as the number of people committing criminal atrocities increases from 60 crimes per 1000 people in both wales and England to 67 criminal offences per 1000 people (The Guardian 2018). Thus with the increase in crime rates there should be an increase in the number of police officers which will require more funds.

To Offer More Training to Police Officers

According to the policing minister, Nick Hurd the government is aware that there is a changing demand on the police, and another statement by Mike Cunningham who said that the officers’ skills need to change to enable them to deal with more issues such as modern slavery and domestic violence also known as the hidden vulnerability. In order to achieve what the two government officials want, the police officers are supposed to undergo new training programs to enable them to add the required new skills, and this can only be achieved when the government spends more money on policing (bbc 2018).

To maintain Sustainability of Basic Police Services

According to Dave Thompson, the chief constable of West Midlands forces the core aspects of policing like attending to emergencies, answering of emergency calls, neighborhood policing, investigating crime and bringing offenders to justice are the significant vulnerability which are becoming very unproductive to the disadvantage of the self-confidence of the policing department (The Guardian 2018). This is caused by the constant fund deductions experienced over the years. He also added that the government has been putting too much concentration of threats such as terrorism and other very high-end threats but forgetting about local crimes which were left for the police forces and the crime commissioners to manage regardless of the steep reductions in their budget. For the police force to tackle the local crimes effectively the government should consider spending more money on all sectors of the policing department (National Audit Office, 2015). Although terrorism is a significant threat to the United Kingdom, local crimes are also as dangerous, and both should be treated with the same magnitude to ensure that the whole nation experiences stability in the police force.

Conclusion

If the United Kingdom increased the number of funds spent on policing, it would experience significant improvement in security since the police will counter the increasing crime rates. Since there will be sustainability in provision of essential police services such as neighborhood policing, the additional funds will also enable the police to undergo more training to curb hidden vulnerabilities, the law enforcement agencies will also be able to raise the number of officers to improve and fasten the process of bringing offenders to book and most importantly to reduce the stress levels experienced by officers when conducting their duties.

References

National Audit Office, 2015. Financial Sustainability of Police Forces in England and Wales.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-45477960

https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Financial-sustainability-of-police-forces-in-England-and-Wales-2018-Summary.pdf

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/nov/09/britains-police-budgets-to-lose-700m-by-2020-amid-rising

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/oct/10/policing-at-tipping-point-over-budget-cuts-warns-police-chief

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jun/26/police-cuts-hit-london-harder-than-anywhere-else-in-uk-sadiq-khan