Police Federation response to Hogan-Howe comments that police should attend every crime

02 September 2009

 

Responding to comments made by outgoing Merseyside chief constable, Bernard Hogan-Howe, that police should attend every reported crime Paul McKeever, Chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales, says:

“Bernard Hogan-Howe is quite right to identify that it is police service policies for dealing with crime, and not individual police officer actions, that are failing the public. We have highlighted this concern for several years but unfortunately, with the exception of one or two chief constables, our fears have fallen on deaf ears.

“We appreciate the demands on policing grow year on year; we currently take around 80 million calls and deal with 20 million incidents, but when the public report a crime they are right to expect that a police officer can attend and deal appropriately with it. This will not only assist flagging detection rates but also build better public confidence and trust in the police; confidence that has been gradually eroded through the introduction of government-led policing gimmicks and the removal of police officers from frontline policing.

“Let’s hope that Mr Hogan-Howe’s words impact on his chief officer colleagues and in future police officers are sent to deal with all crimes. If this means reconfiguring the workforce to ensure there are sufficient numbers of sworn police officers with full powers to do so, then so be it. We believe that is a price worth paying to ensure the public receive the police service they rightly expect.”

ENDS

 

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