Next, a look at some of the major challenges police forces in Wales (and the UK more generally) continue to face or have had to adapt to more recently.
While the Conservatives like to portray themselves as the police’s friend, during the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition of 2010-2015 – and afterwards – the police came off surprisingly badly in terms of enforced spending cuts as part of the UK Government’s austerity agenda.
Between March 2010 and March 2018 – the “peak” of austerity – police forces in Wales lost a combined equivalent of 408 full-time officers (-5.6%).
These losses have since recovered, mainly due to individual Police & Crime Commissioners applying inflation-busting council tax precept increases to top up their government grant funding. But as of March 2021, there are only 42 more full-time equivalent police officers in Wales than there were in 20101.
The current UK Government had a manifesto pledge in 2019 to recruit an additional 20,000 police officers (the proportional share for Wales would be around 1,120), but they’re seemingly a long way from achieving that as things stand – not helped by the Covid-19 pandemic, of course.
Austerity had other knock-on impacts. 667 police stations in England and Wales closed between 2010 and 2018 – equivalent to around half of all police stations. This was partially due to changes in how the police use technology (itself a cost-saving measure), forces selling off assets to raise capital funding for new projects (because they weren’t getting money from the UK Government) and increased centralisation of police facilities.
In the case of the latter, this has seen modern high-capacity custody suites – effectively mini-jails – built by South Wales Police in Swansea, Cardiff, Bridgend and Merthyr Tydfil. Larger police stations have replaced (or are due to replace) older ones in Wrexham and Llanelli, while South Wales Police and Gwent Police have sought to improve the range of facilities at their force headquarters (or replace them completely).
There’s always a risk that if the police aren’t seen to be working, or if cutbacks have made them seem to be a “soft touch” because they can’t do as much work as they used to, then members of the public will increasingly take matters into their own hands.
It’s no coincidence that austerity measures have coincided with the rise of vigilante groups – particularly those targeting predatory sex offenders and groomers online.
The rights and wrongs of their work is a topic in itself. While they may help catch some low-level offenders, they may also distract the police from dealing with more serious and organised criminals. Some of their “stings” may also count as entrapment. These groups may be well-intentioned, but they’re not saints.
Civilised societies need properly resourced policing because while it’s happening to nonces and wannabe nonces now, you’ll increasingly start to see mob justice handed out for lower-level crimes that don’t warrant it. As much as things like video doorbells and dashcams can deter criminals, they just as equally can turn anyone into an amateur detective and it’s only a matter of time before someone gets hurt.
1. – UK Home Office, (March 2010, March 2018, March 2021). Police workforce England and Wales statistics. Data sets are available at https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/police-workforce-england-and-wales.
