The period in which clear-up rates for the most serious crimes collapsed coincided with big cuts to police budgets, and the subsequent fall in police officer numbers of about 20,000.
The last Conservative government, responsible for the cuts after 2010 in the name of austerity, spent its time denying they would have any damaging effect on crime fighting in England and Wales. Then, in its final years, it started to reverse the cuts, and pretended “wokery” among law enforcement had diverted officers’ attention.
There are few left who would argue the effect of slashing police budgets was not damaging. The question that remains is how much those cuts can be blamed for the deterioration in service for victims.
Other factors have been at play since 2010. Cases became more complex, with the average serious investigation now involving the examination of electronic devices. A low – and sometimes nonexistent – budget for technology means digital forensics for policing are nowhere near as good as they need to be.
Austerity shrank other public services, and too often policing picked up the pieces. The biggest complaint from police chiefs was the amount of time officers spent dealing with mental health issues, which is now being reduced.
But credible senior voices in policing say too many chiefs lost focus on the core mission of catching criminals, and that the cadre of capable chief constables is thin and showing little sign of being replenished.
The criminal justice system is a mass of contradictions. Some official statistics can show crime falling through a certain lens. Look at them another way, or look at entirely different figures, and they bear out a system in crisis.
At the same time as rates for catching serious offenders collapsed, the prisons in England and Wales got so full they had to be partially emptied before they burst.
Conditions in prisons are lambasted by the inspectorate, and rehabilitation is too often wishful thinking rather than a reality. Probation changes under Chris Grayling created a fresh crisis, and the damage is still being undone.
Poverty rates surged in wider society, and most police leaders would privately say that a map of their highest crime areas is exactly the same as a map of their poorest ones. Andy Cooke, now the chief inspector of constabulary, said in 2021 that reducing poverty and inequality was the best route to cutting crime.
He explained: “The best crime prevention is increased opportunity and reduced poverty … So there needs to be substantial funding into the infrastructure of our inner cities and our more deprived areas.”
Covid and lockdowns worsened the crisis in the courts that was exacerbated first by austerity, causing long backlogs to grow even longer. Two- or three-year waits for trials in England and Wales are putting victims off supporting prosecutions, deciding that engagement with the justice system threatens healing from their ordeal.
The Crown Prosecution Service, coping with its own cuts, denied it was cherry-picking the strongest cases, letting other victims down, but few in policing believed them.
Key leaders in the criminal justice system privately accept victims are being failed, and are increasingly saying so in public. And from police chiefs to senior prosecutors, they have solutions that, at best, may solve one part.
Privately everyone accepts money alone is not the answer, but it is a key part, and there is little hope of much emerging.
Policing says it needs £3bn, though to deliver what exactly remains sketchy. Even some of the most successful chiefs, who took failing forces and boosted detection rates, say the maximum clear-up rate is no higher than 16%.
When Labour was in opposition, crashing prosecution rates were a stick with which to beat the then Conservative government. But the longer Labour stays in power, the greater the danger that they will be blamed if things do not improve.
Relations between ministers and police chiefs are vastly improved compared with the final years of the Conservative regime.
Police chiefs blame external factors, but the suspicion remains that while frontline officers are being overworked, with frequent cancellation of rest days and rising rates of trauma, the leadership could be doing better. As could the leadership in the wider criminal justice system, as well as in government, and all those hoping to replace them.