The police

• Social control responsibilities


  The police is the main agency for the detection, investigation and prevention of crime. Their work results in many court cases, fixed penalty notices, cautions and reprimands. Police forces have specialist departments to deal with different types of crimes.
• Specialist policing


  The police are not the only agency responsible for investigating crime. HMRC investigates tax evasion, the Border Force immigration offences. There are also specialist forces, such as the British Transport Police and Civil Nuclear Constabulary.
• Offences of public concern

  The police have prioritised some of the offnces of public concern, such as domestic abuse with increased number of reports. Survey evidence from 2017 shows that 2/3 of domestic abuse practitioners felt the police's approach had improved in the previous years.
• Shortcomings of the police approach to domestic abuse according to survey evidence from 2017


  The report shows shortcoming in police's approach to domestic abuse:

  1. The arrest rate has been falling.

  2. Police are not using bail conditions to protect victims.

  3. Staff shortages are causing delays in responding to incidents, putting victims at risk.

  4. Bodycams are not always being used to gather evidence.

  Therefore, the police are not always successful in achieving social control.
• Inefficiency


  There have been criticisms of police's inefficiency in investigations. For example, the Macpherson Reported noted the failure of the Met Police to gather evidence and investigate leads in the murder of Stephen Lawrence that could have led to a successful prosecution of the five leading suspects in the case.
• More crimes but fewer solved

  Police statistics show that crime is increasing. The number of offences rose from 4.5m in March 2016 to 5.7m in September 2018
• Knife and gun crime

  Rose from 24k to 40k between 2015-2018. In the same period gun offences rose from 4.9k to 6.600k. However, in 2015 15% of cases resulted in a charge, in 2018 - 8.2%. The number of penalty notices and cautions has fallen as well.
• Financial circumstances


  From 2010 the government funding of the police has been falling, meaning that less offences can be effectively investigated. Some offences are prioritised over others.
• Improving recording procedures


  In 2014 police statistics were deemed not to meet the standards required by the ONS. This led to improves in police statistics, which could explain the rise in recorded offences level.
• Evidence from the CSEW


  CSEW statistics shows that overall crime level has been falling for several years to 2017 and remain the same in 2018, not increasing as the police statistics show. However, CSEW does not include offences against businesses and U10, surveys only a sample of population. Police statistics tend to pick up more serious crime and ones where police crime number is needed for insurance claims.
• Racism and bias


  After the Macpherson Report in 1999 there has been considerable interest in the relationship of the police to BAME.

  1. Recruitment of officers from BAME increased but they continue to be under-represented in the police force

  2. Stop and searches are disproportionately used against BAME.

  3. Tasers are disproportionately against BAME.

  Due to policing by consent idea bad relations with a group of population can lead to failures in investigations.
• Media reports


  There have been accusations of the police portraying "crimbusters" image in the media. In 2014, South Yorkshire Police invited the BBC to film their raid of the home of Sir Cliff Richard. No charges had been brought against him and BBC and the police had to pay damages to singer. The police have also been criticised for over-reacting to moral panics in media. This can draw police resources away from other areas of criminality that may be more serious or widespread.