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The latest report from the police inspectorate focuses on how police forces are investigating volume crime and finds that they need to improve understanding of demand and how to resource it because the outcomes for victims are not good enough.
How police forces investigate crime is fundamental to the legitimacy of policing and to public confidence, says His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS), explaining the background to its inspection report. It says that there has been a long-term decline in successful prosecutions, meaning that too few criminal investigations are leading to justice for victims.
The 135pp report, Crime investigations: An inspection into how effectively the police investigate crime, contains 11 recommendations to chief constables, police forces and others to make sure they build a better understanding of their crime-related demand and the resources they need so they can meet it. Inspectors recommended more effective processes, better training for all and improved supervision of crime investigations.
“There is no doubt there is a lot of pressure on policing. We couldn’t find a team where there were manageable levels of demand,” explained HMI Lee Freeman talking to Dr Rick Muir on the Police Foundation Friday Exchange about this report.
He said that victims are not at the heart of the process of investigating crime as forces process demand and can take a week or more before responding to someone to keep them up to date. Police recorded crime has gone up 44% in the last ten years but police resources have not, he said, adding that police officers have less experience with a large proportion with less than five years in role.
“Policing doesn’t have enough resources in order to give the high quality service that it needs at the moment for the volume of police recorded crime.”
He pointed out inconsistency in recording, assessing, allocating and investigating crime and how current practice could be improved to get better outcomes for victims. “The professionalisation of the area of volume crime is a challenge for chiefs because of resources and demand but there is far more that forces could and should be doing with the resources they have before they are in a strong position to ask for more.”
The report says that forces are recording how many times they update victims, rather than recording how effective the updates are at providing information and support. “It is clear that outcomes for victims are not good enough. Victims often withdraw their support for investigations, citing delays in the criminal justice process as a key factor.”
Asked by Dr Muir what was preventing police officers from becoming detectives in the first place, Freeman said that it was the “hygiene factors” such as the change in shift patterns and the demands on officer time to train for the role rather than the job itself that was preventing people moving departments.
The shift to digital devices by the public means that evidence is often found on phones and can take time to access and process, which in turn can slow down crime investigation and the service that victims receive from the police.
Responding to this point, Freeman said: “Forces are struggling with keeping up to date with digital forensics and are affected by staff retention as those skills are in high demand. What we hear from police forces is that demand has increased, the nature of crime has changed but I don’t think we integrate our systems in a user-friendly way to deal with it. This is frustrating for staff and holds us back. They often tell us it makes the job hard and slows them down compared to the old paper systems.”
The report contains examples of good practice including the use of body worn video data by West Midlands Police to support its crime investigation and Cumbria Constabulary’s use of CCTV monitoring and analytical tools.
The Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC) said PCCs and Mayors welcomed the report and are now considering the findings and recommendations. APCC join leads on Performance, PCC Chris Nelson and PCC John Tizard said: “The report demonstrates that forces must improve the effectiveness of crime investigations and achieve better outcomes for victims, both of which are vital to improving public confidence in policing.
“The recruitment of more detectives and supervisors and training is key, but this also needs to apply to police officers and staff, including call handlers and neighbourhood teams. And, as the report recognises, this cannot be at the expense of other areas.”
Read the report in full here – Crime investigations: An inspection into how effectively the police investigate crime.
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