There was a really interesting post on /r/UK earlier today about the state of policing in this country:
I serve in the Met Police. This is my experience as a Met officer. I can't speak for other forces, but I know they are similar, especially those such as Manchester and Birmingham (West Midlands Police).
Policing isn't braking, its broken. We're broken. The whole policing system from the front line to the court room is broken. People are tired, weary, fed up, under paid, under appreciated.....some have even committed suicide becasue they just can't take it anymore.
20,000 is not going to help at all. If the public really knew and actually cared about how bad it is currently to be a police officer they'd be shocked.
Say you line in North London. To the Met that compromises of Enfield and Haringey. You are supposed to have 60 officers per shift, but that was reduced to around 30 when they realised that 60 was impossible. Now 30 is what is known as minimum strength. This means that 30 is the minimum number of officers that should be working at any one shift and should be able to cope with what ever the day brings. Except its never 30, it's 18 or 19. Of if you're lucky it's 20. This is Met wide. No borough is currently functioning at its minimum strength. Not one, and its the same for detectives.
Mi Investigation was brought in to ease the burden on detectives so they could be left to deal with more serious crime. It was agreed that uniformed officers should not have to deal or take on more than 5 crimes. This doesn't sound like much and it isn't but consider they have to also answer calls, commit to aid requirements, go to court, process requests, work in custody, work in the station office (detectives don't have to do these other duties they just mostly investigate crime). However officers are routinely carrying 10 or more and its just simply not workable.
Police have had an 18 percent pay cut in the last 9 years (compared to the rate of inflation).
The government DO NOT WANT career police officers anymore. They want you to join up for 5 years and leave. They don't want to pay the pensions and they don't want people staying long enough to get to top rate. The teaching of officers will be set to a national standard which isn't a bad thing and means that you will get a transferable qualification outside of policing but it is severely reduced and has been adjusted so much that its simply a case of getting as many through the door as possible with below par instruction.
The attrition rate is awful with only 4 in 10 officers staying after their 2 year probation. With detectives it's even worse.
Honestly I could go on and on about how Sir Tom Winsor and Teresa May and the Conservative government have slowly crushed the life out of policing.
Apologies for poor formatting, I'm walking to my police station now and wondering if I shouldn't just turn around and go home.
https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/ ... k_more_if/
Glad I live in a different city now, to be honest. Toronto has its problems but it's very safe for such a large city.