Number of ‘Bobbies on the Beat’ in Britain Fell by One Third in Five Years

NORTHALLERTON, ENGLAND - JULY 30: Prime Minster, Boris Johnson visits The North Yorkshire
Charlotte Graham - WPA Pool/Getty
Kurt Zindulka

The number of police on foot patrol in communities has fallen by a third over the past five years, despite Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s pledge to bolster the ranks of forces across the country.

According to data from Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, Fire and Rescue Services, there are now only one police community support officer (PCSO) for every 2,400 people in England and Wales. This is down from one officer per 1,650 people in 2012/2013.

Colloquially known as “bobbies on the beat” in Britain, members of the PCSO are often tasked with maintaining social order by policing low-level street crime, such as anti-social behaviour, underage drinking, and littering.

The number of police officers tasked with protecting local neighbourhoods has fallen by 7,000 since 2015, declining from 23,928 to 16,577 The Telegraph reported. The British broadsheet went on to report that in some localities in Cambridgeshire and Surrey, the number of bobbies on the beat has fallen to as low as one officer per 5,000 people.

The decline comes despite Prime Minister Boris Johnson campaigning on recruiting 20,000 police officers to deal with the rise in crime in Britain, with knife crime, in particular, plaguing the streets of cities across the nation.

Implying that his plan would see more bobbies on the beat in 2019, Mr Johnson said: “People want to see more officers in their neighbourhoods, protecting the public and cutting crime.”

However, the reality is that many of those recruited will not go into serving as on the ground officers.

Under successive Conservative governments between 2010 and 2018, the number of officers in the country fell by over 21,000 in England and Wales, meaning that despite claims of “bolstering” the ranks of the police force, it will still be smaller than before the Tories came into power.

So far, the government has only announced that it has met half of its target of 20,000 officers recruited.

Under Tory rule, there has also been an increased police focus on monitoring so-called hate speech on the internet, with some 120,000 non-crime hate incidents being recorded since the scheme was introduced in 2015.

Commenting on the falling trust among the public in police forces, former chief constable Sara Thornton said last month that it is directly correlated with the lack of officers on patrol in local communities.

“I don’t think the police service valued it anything like as much as the public did,” she said, adding: “The very obvious thing is that the service has lost connection with the public, and it needs to correct it as a matter of urgency.”

The Labour Party’s shadow Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper also stressed the need for more community policing, saying: “Police out on the beat and visible in local neighbourhoods are vital for stopping crime and keeping communities safe. Yet under the Tories, neighbourhood policing has been decimated, with fewer neighbourhood officers stretched to cover more and more people.

Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka

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