Federation deputy chair urges return to community policing

22 March 2023

Federation national deputy chair Tiff Lynch has made a passionate plea for an urgent return to community policing.

“Police officers are not out there doing what they are employed to do and what they want to do in terms of helping society,” says Tiff.

“What we have not got is officers out there on the street, mixing with the community and talking to the community. We need them listening to the community and finding out the root problems that are happening. This would enable them to be better equipped to both solve and deter crime.

“We need to bring back neighbourhood policing. It’s the bedrock of policing and the root of all policing because we are there in the communities we serve.

“From there, it will help us support all other areas of crime.”

Suffolk Police Federation chair Darren Harris said he fully supported Tiff’s comments.

He said: “Community policing is essential to the idea of policing with consent. The bobby on the beat is the eyes and ears of his neighbourhood and provides both reassurance and a deterrent.

“We have suffered more than 12 years of underfunding and neighbourhood policing has often been among the first things to go when forces have responded to these cutbacks. We need to put that right.

“A visible police presence in the heart of our communities would also help restore some of the confidence and trust that has been lost over the last few years.”

The role of the police in the community has been heavily featured in the media agenda of late and was again highlighted when shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said Labour would recruit 13,000 more neighbourhood police, with a named officer for each community, if the party wins the next election.

The plans would be supported by new legislation which would guarantee more community patrols to tackle anti-social behaviour and crime. 

Ms Cooper told the BBC: “Too often neighbourhood policing has been seen as a Cinderella service in many forces - always the one that gets squeezed or cut back if there are budget cuts or if there are pressures elsewhere.”

Tiff says that a dereliction of community policing over the past few years has led to a distrust of the service, in certain areas, that needs to be built up again as soon as possible.

“It’s fair to say that policing is through the floor in terms of public trust in the whole service. That doesn’t, however, mean that every single police officer should not be trusted,” added Tiff.

“With ever-increasing levels of cyber-crime and other specialist crime departments needed, our chief constables need to move people around. Every single department will say they are more important than the next, but one thing that doesn’t change is our neighbourhoods, because that is where people live and congregate and that’s where people talk.

“We need to know who the criminals are and we need to know the people that are having the crimes committed against them. We can only do that by being active in the communities in which they live.”

Watch Tiff’s interview.