POLICE
SPENDING OUT OF CONTROL
Who said there was never a police officer around when
you need one?
According
to latest research at least on Merseyside, this shoudn't be a problem.
Merseyside is the most heavily policed area outside London. The police
in Merseyside have more officers available for ordinary duty than any
force apart from the Met. Currently, there is one officer for every 338
people living in Merseyside. This compares with the national average of
420. Over the past 30 years or so, not only has Merseyside had the highest
number of police per head of population outside London, but has also seen
this rate rise by 21%. And we are set to be even more over-policed over
the next 3 years. A successful bid to the government Crime Fighting Fund
means that between 2001 and 2004, Merseyside will recruit an extra 332
police officers.
The Audit Commission has noted recently that "It is sometimes
thought that having more police officers is the way to increase the proportion
of crime cleared up. But this does not automatically happen." There you
have it, more police does not mean less crime: it's official.
But regardless
of whether the police have any impact on crime rates, the fact is that
- contrary to what the rest of the country thinks - the crime rate in
Liverpool and Merseyside is very low in comparison to other cities. Home
Office figures have shown that Liverpool has a lower recorded crime rate
than Birmingham, Bradford, Bristol, Cardiff, Cheltenham, Gloucester, Hastings,
Hull, Leeds, Leicester, Lincoln, Luton, Manchester, Middlesborough, Milton
Keynes, Northampton, Norwich, Oxford, Peterborough, Plymouth, Reading,
Slough, South Buckinghamshire, Stockport and 8 London Boroughs. Yet local
people are paying through the nose for a police force that is already
grossly over funded. The council tax police precept for Merseyside is
over £29m, and, in terms of the council tax imposed upon us, is the fifth
highest in the country. It is only residents of Greater London, Staffordshire,
Lincolnshire and Cumbria that pay more for their police force in local
taxes. The council continues to throw money at the police. This year councillors
agreed to fund 12 officers from the Liverpool City Council budget, the
first time any council in the country has made such a donation to a police
force. According to Norman Bettison, Chief Constable of Merseyside: "The
dilemma for local people today is whether they retain the standard of
policing on Merseyside that they have come to expect, or whether it should
be reduced in line with the national average spend." Well, that might
be a dilemma for local people today if we ever had any say in the matter.
