Bureaucracy fighting crime

Tough on crime. Tough on the causes of crime. Now that is picking a winner. This is what the government should be doing. However, it seems that being tough on crime and its causes has more to do with sitting behind a desk pushing a pen than actually getting out in to towns and cities and actually catching some criminals. According to research, as few as one in three officers are available to respond to 999 calls and tackle crime – particularly at night when the police are most needed to tackle drunken hooligans.

Why do we pay millions of pounds a year in taxes to train up and pay the wages of our police officers when they spend half their shift writing about what they have done that day? It doesn’t take a genius to work out that the police would better tackle crime if they are at the crime scenes or even better out and about stopping crimes taking place in the first place. I do fear, however, that things are unlikely to change and even if they do the government will probably have to set up an “independent” think tank first to tell what we already know – uniformed officers are tough on crime and its causes, not bic biros.