Outgoing chief inspector of constabulary says police must confront series of problems to ‘rebuild public trust’
Major shortcomings persist in England and Wales’s police forces, the outgoing chief inspector of constabulary has warned, as he said one of the most important missions was to “rebuild public trust”.
Sir Tom Winsor, in his ninth and final annual review, said that police must confront a series of problems, including the aftermath of Sarah Everard’s murder by a police officer, if damage to confidence is be restored.
Fraud has “exploded” and continues to be wrongly treated as a low priority by many forces.
The model of local accountability, involving police and crime commissioners, has fractured some relationships between police and politicians, and left some chief constables lacking in confidence in their operational independence.
The speed with which the government has tried to recruit 20,000 officers, in line with the Conservative manifesto, means there is a “heightened danger” that people unsuited to policing may get through.
The “fragile architecture” of having 43 police forces, devised in 1962 and implemented in 1974, is “very far from fit for purpose” in the 2020s.
Online crime is now by far the most prevalent type of crime. “It used to be that children were seen as unsafe out on the streets. Now they may be more at risk in their own bedrooms,” he said.
Public expectations to fight crime cannot be met without sufficient funding and “the public through their politicians must decide how much threat, harm and risk they are prepared to tolerate”.
