Originally Posted by
ORAC
I am not sure why police numbers are an issue. In all three of the latest terrorist events they have performed commendably - particularly in the latest.
If there has been a failure it is in the security services who, it appears, had plenty of information on at least one of the latest 3 killers; and the budget for the security services has been massively increased over the last 10 years - including funding for another 2000 members in 2015.
As a DC I think police numbers matter in a number of ways.
First neighbourhood officers supply intel and build relationships which can help uncover plots. Secondly the number of AFOs (firearms officers) is being increased but by 2018 we will still have fewer armed officers than we had in 2010, and no matter how capable they are they can't be in two places at once. In addition every new AFO means one less neighbourhood, traffic, response or CID officer as they can only perform one role at a time. Thirdly resilience. Many of the officers drafted in for security in Cardiff, Manchester and London came from other forces and had rest days cancelled or were put on longer shifts in order to provide back up. Their presence in other force areas also means that they would not be available for their own forces and their own roles. Fourthly reported crime is starting to creep up and we in the police have not started to get a grip on new forms of crime such as cyber crime. RTCs, violent and sexual offences are all increasing and whilst HMG may claim that this is to do with better reporting they have been claiming that for the last 3 or 4 years so those effects must be dropping out of the system. I think its as much to do with cuts to PC numbers as anything else as we have less people to provide a deterrent, fewer officers to respond to incidents and a lot less people to investigate an incident once it has happened. Lastly returning to AFOs, the majority of our resources are concentrated in London but as the Manchester attack showed the capital isn't the only city being targeted. I dread to think what would happen in my city if one of the large night clubs or sporting events was attacked at kicking out time, because I can't see anyway that we could get a concentrated armed response to deal with the attackers within 8 minutes.