police

• S. many different specialist roles, such as CID, dog handlers, traffic, family liaison officers, cypercrime etc

  specialisms make it more likely the police will be able to detect or prevent crime, and bring criminals to justice
• S. progress in prioritising some of the offences of concern to the public

  gain more public trust to bring more criminals to justice and closure to victims
• W. institutional racism, e.g. findigs of the McPherson report (1999) and the Baroness Caseys review of the police standards of behaviour and internal culture (2023)


  if institutional racism exists, crimes against black victims less likely to be solved (eg Stephen Lawrence) and black officers less likely to be recruited, or stay in post (eg in London, 60% population are white, but 85% of police are white), having a detrimental effect on community relations
• W. failure to investigate large numbers of offences reported to them

  e.g. 2018- MET police dropped 2.9 times as many cases on the day that they were reported as they had done in 2013
• W. inadequate funding

  2010 - major budget cuts, cause a lot of cases to be dropped, fewer officers
• W. over-reacting to media driven moral panics

  draws police resources away from other areas of criminality that may be more serious
• W. numerous criticisms of the polices inefficiency or incompetence in investigating offences successfully

  e.g. MacPherson report