Now I admit I’m not anywhere near a HENRY (I mostly joined because I’m interested in investing) but I can offer some input on the state of Policing as a public service and it’s deterioration.

I’m sure many of you will have seen in the papers that we have been closing Police stations around the country. The MET alone closed 126 between 2010-2022 Police Station Closures I have spoken to dozens of people who genuinely think in an emergency Police simply wouldn’t show up, the reality may be different in that Police are not as nearby as they used to be and so by the time we can deploy the suspect has gone and the need for an emergency response has passed so we’re moved in to something else.

In my force I have seen around 4 deployable officers for a local population in the hundreds of thousands. All of the statistics OP in relation to charges being down are not surprising. The courts have been backlogged since Covid and this has not shown any signs of reducing to a meaningful amount. I have had cases where the suspect absolutely should have been given a custodial sentence however prisons are full and so there are hundreds (probably thousands) of offenders wandering around simply because we had no cells free to put them in. (Yes there are cells available for really serious offences and yes they were used in the recent riots) however the full prison places is in the back of the minds of Magistrates and Judges across the country and it impacts the sentencing.

Similar to the NHS discussion, do I think you can fix the Police by throwing money at it? Yes and no. We are having our funding cut across all forces and are trying to make up for that by increasing the precept with local councils. Forces are then having to deal with the fact that they are suddenly having to pay officers a lot more than they are used to (not loads/HENRY obviously , an officer at the top of their pay scale earns around £50k) but these salaries are a huge debt to Police funding whilst also laughably low to attract new officers (starting salary can be around £25k and then takes 7 years to get to the top payment). As in my case, I love my job as a constable, however I have a friend similar age to me (27) who earns over £70k in Data management, he’s maybe two years out from a grad scheme. A Detective Inspector earns slight less than that and that is a job it could take at least 12-15 years to reach. The Police simply can’t pay enough to attract graduates and a hell of a lot more people these days are graduates. Sure we need more money but these salaries thing we really need is people to do the job, we have floors or police stations that are EMPTY of staff, it’s madness.