Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has unveiled the biggest shake-up in policing in 200 years – and says it will go a long way to cutting crime in neighbourhoods in England and Wales
I grew up in the eighties and early nineties in a Birmingham neighbourhood where crime was a fact of life.
We lived above the family shop, where we were victims of shoplifters and local thugs. Or at least, we were until my dad put a cricket bat behind the counter…
So I know the impact crime has on a community. And I know that everyday crimes, like shop theft and antisocial behaviour, tear away at a place like the one I grew up in. As Home Secretary, I am driven by the belief that no community should be victim to the scourge of criminality.
And I know that there is no such thing as what some people call “low-level” or “petty” crimes. As Home Secretary, I am also proud of our police.
READ MORE: Shabana Mahmood’s key policing changes from British FBI to AI and crack squadsREAD MORE: Shamed ex-Home Secretary Suella Braverman joins Reform and launches poisonous rant
In the last year, they have made three quarters of a million arrests. That’s over 30,000 more than the year before. We’ve cut knife crime by 5% and knife murders by almost 20%.
But I also know that it doesn’t always feel like that. There is an epidemic of everyday crime in this country right now.
And these are crimes that far too often go without consequence. Shoplifting is up 72% since 2010. Street theft like phone snatching and pick-pocketing is up 58%.
At the same time, crime is changing. It is nationwide, crosses borders and happens online. Most crimes now have a digital element. Fraud is soaring. Serious and organised crime is rising. As a Government, we’re starting to change the story.
To bear down on neighbourhood crime, we’re getting 13,000 more neighbourhood police out in communities, already on track for 3,000 officers by March. But we have to be honest. We need to do more.
So today, I have launched the biggest reform that policing has seen in nearly 200 years. To tackle the sophisticated and dangerous criminals, I will create a new, National Police Service.
This will bring together policing of terrorism, serious organised crime and fraud. Think of it like a British version of America’s FBI.
We also need to reform the 43 forces we have today. They vary in size and, unfortunately, in performance too.
Where you live in this country today too often determines the experience you get from your local force. Our plan here is to do two things.
Firstly, we will create fewer, larger forces so every force is big enough to provide high-quality policing to the area it covers. Secondly, we will get those forces focused on policing only their area.
We will have smaller local policing areas, within each force, with neighbourhood officers focused on that epidemic of everyday crime. We need to bring all policing into the modern world.
Some forces are already at the cutting edge of tech, and the results speak for themselves. But others are still using analogue tools in this digital age. We need to get every force up to speed, with the latest tech like facial recognition to take rapists and murderers off our streets.
We are making significant investment to make sure that happens. Finally, I want to make the police answer to the public.
The Government will be setting targets. We’ll make forces report their performance not just to us, but to you too. Where performance falls, we’ll send in turnaround teams. On the rare occasions where performance cannot be recovered, I will restore my power to dismiss Chief Constables.
We’ve got great police officers across this country. We’ve got policing leaders who are bold and effective. But we’ve got a policing system that isn’t serving them, and isn’t serving the public.
So, it’s time we changed. These reforms are ambitious – and they will take time. But we won’t waste a minute in getting started.
We will deliver local policing that protects your community, and a national force that protects us all.