Freddie Downing is the Conservative Candidate for City and East in the London Assembly Elections in May.
I was walking home from Stratford Station last year when I saw three young lads on bikes near my flat. Also ahead of me was another young man leaving the local dentist. He was tapping away on his mobile. You can guess what happened next.
One of the cyclists spotted the mobile, quickly changed direction and, within seconds, snatched the mobile out of the young man’s hand.
This story will be familiar to many Londoners, either because they’ve been mugged, or they know someone who’s been a victim. The experience spurred me to stand for the London Assembly and, in February, I was pleased to launch my City of London Crime Plan alongside Nickie Aiken, the local MP.
Street muggings can often be dismissed as ‘petty’ crime. But there’s nothing petty about how these crimes leave victims feeling: shocked, scared and violated. Further, unless these crimes are tackled, the problem will only get worse. No one wants to live, work or invest in an area blighted by crime.
What can we do?
The answer is straightforward. We need to bring back Neighbourhood Policing and get police officers back on the street.
I was door-knocking in East Ham recently where one dad shared his frustration that groups would loiter outside the local primary school, drinking and littering the pavement with their empty beer cans. I’ve no doubt that wouldn’t happen if there were police on that street.
The need to boost police visibility, therefore, is evident. And we have the numbers to do it. Thanks to the Government’s Uplift programme, more than 3,500 extra police officers have been recruited across London since September 2019.
So, where are they?
In early March, I shadowed two excellent police constables in Tower Hamlets.
We don’t always fully appreciate the pressures police officers face on shift. I must say both PCs demonstrated an incredible level of professionalism, calmness and sense of duty throughout several challenging situations.
From this experience, I believe there are five key issues we need to tackle to get more police back on the beat:
Firstly, week after week police officers are taken out of their neighbourhoods and sent to police protests in Central London. Inevitably, this leaves local policing teams depleted. I’m aware of at least one occasion where there were only 12 officers policing a borough on a Friday night because shifts had been changed for the weekend protests. Of course, the right to protest must be protected, but we also need to consider the wider impact, for example, neighbourhoods being left under-policed, especially if it’s the same people protesting the same issue each week.
Secondly, half the calls I attended during my shift were domestic incidents. That’s now normal, apparently. In each case, no crime had been committed and no one involved wanted to take matters further. Previously, police would only attend an incident if a crime was reported but, following changes to reporting standards, even verbal arguments must be recorded now. The greater focus on combatting domestic violence is absolutely right. However, given the significant increase in the number of household incidents which police must attend, more must be done to distinguish between standard family arguments – like two sisters falling out over a missing ring – and cases where a crime has been committed and/or there’s a genuine risk to someone’s safety.
Thirdly, we need to thoroughly review the administration burden on police officers. During the average eight-hour shift, I found an officer can spend 25 per cent of their time writing up incidents. This includes incidents where no crime has been committed. Police officers should be in neighbourhoods preventing crimes, not sat in front of a computer recording non-crimes.
Fourthly, the policing degree should be scrapped. I can understand why it was introduced – a qualification is often an attractive employee incentive. That said, policing is not like any other career; it’s a vocation. People join because they want to serve their community, not to sit in a classroom learning the theory of policing. Being on the job is the best way for them to learn. Further, it’s unhelpful for intake after intake of police recruits to be sent off to the classroom for weeks at a time.
Finally, our police officers need better leadership training and more support from senior officers. Every shift, officers are on the frontline, doing the hardest of jobs in the most difficult of circumstances. Sadly, they don’t always feel they get the support they need from senior leaders. This is impacting retention. We must do more to train senior police officers to be better leaders. A police equivalent of Sandhurst would be a good first step. This would support PCs and sergeants who want to progress to a more senior level, as well as direct entry recruits to senior ranks. Of course, in line with point four, care must be taken to ensure such training strengthens frontline policing and does not leave it depleted.
I have huge respect for the police and the vital work they do. I want to see more of them in our neighbourhoods. That’s where officers want to be and it’s where the public need them to be.
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