Policing UK 2013 - Police Federation

OVERVIEW
“If a crime is deterred there is
no-one to punish for committing it.
Thus, both the costs of crime and
punishment are averted.”
prison terms, to more effective use of
police to make the risks of crime clearer
and consequences of criminal activity
faster and more certain.
Police resources
Our analysis is very much contingent on
the efficient use of police resources, not
on police numbers. For example, much
research demonstrates that crime is
concentrated at so-called ‘hot spots’ such
as problem bars or drug markets. Other
research demonstrates that concentrating
police patrols in the immediate vicinity
of hot spots is effective in suppressing
the level of criminal activity at the hot
spot without necessarily displacing it
elsewhere. Further, there is also research
demonstrating that committing police
resources to unfocused patrol activities is
ineffective.
Police can reduce crime in two ways.
One way is by the apprehension and
incarceration of criminals. Particularly,
for incorrigible offenders, crime control
by their incapacitation in prison makes
a lot of sense. Incapacitation, however,
is very costly, about £45,000 a year in
the UK.
A second way police can prevent
crime is by mobilising themselves in a
way that deters crime from happening
in the first place. Hot spots policing is an
example of such a deployment strategy.
The beauty of deployment strategies
such as hot spots policing is that by
preventing crime in the first place, both
crime and imprisonment is reduced. If
a crime is deterred there is no-one to
punish for committing it. Thus, both
the costs of crime and punishment are
averted.
Police resources
Our recommendation that policing be
spared the full brunt of crime control
budget cuts has important conditions
attached. The details of how this bargain
with police leadership is struck matter a
lot. In return for relative immunity from
budget cuts, the police must be held
accountable for their effectiveness in
preventing crime.
This, in turn, requires that the
decisions of police leadership on how
to mobilise their resources be based on
sound scientific evidence rather than
habit and tradition.
It further requires that the police
internalise the lesson learned by
medicine more than a century ago
– the practice of their craft requires
an ongoing commitment to improved
performance based on scientific
evidence.
Hence, we see the need for ongoing
experimentation with alternative policing
strategies to ensure an ever-expanding
knowledge base of effective methods for
using the police to prevent crime.
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