The police chief tasked with boosting the fight against crime has slammed Liz Truss’ law and order plans as “foolish” and “nonsensical”, accusing them of pursuing “sound-friendly” targets but unrealistic.
Chief Constable Richard Lewis, who heads the National Police Chiefs Council’s performance, said he and law enforcement leaders wanted to work with the new government.
But in a commentary for the Guardian, Lewis said the “back to basics” rhetoric was not serving the public.
Lewis said the effects of police cuts made by Conservative governments were still being felt and urged ministers to stop describing the recruitment of 20,000 officers as an “increase” as it was replacing those lost since 2010.
During the Tory leadership race, Truss, who is expected to win on Monday, announced a raft of law and order policies, including a return to national crime targets, with police chiefs forced to resign accounts if their forces do not fulfill them. His campaign said he would make sure officers were “policing our streets, not Twitter debates”.
Lewis’ concern about his comments is shared by other police chiefs, who believe there is no factual evidence to support the claim that real crimes are regularly ignored because officers waste time on pointless Twitter rows and “woke “.
Another police chief from a high-performing force told the Guardian there were fears the government was fighting for law and order and was therefore “setting the police” to blame. They said: “We have been sliced and diced,” adding: “There is no strength, that is not overwhelmed by crime, demands and mental health.”
Lewis, the chief constable of the Dyfed-Powys force, said the debate on policing was welcome but added: “The public is not well served by calls for the force to “investigate real crime rather than of Twitter rows and hurt feelings’; or blanket phrases such as ‘back to basics’ as used by Liz Truss’s campaign.
“I was particularly interested in Liz Truss’ ‘back to basics’ crime strategy, which would involve ranking forces in league tables, a commitment to recruit 20,000 more police officers and reduce murder and violent crime in 20%, and a personal visit by an officer for each victim of domestic theft.
“While these demands may make eye-catching headlines, they are meaningless without further explanation from the Tory leader hopeful.”
Truss called for 20% cuts in key crime types such as murder. Centralized targets entered the workforce but were abandoned because they led to perverse incentives, with officers prioritizing crimes measured by targets while paying less attention to those that were not, even if they caused more harm .
Lewis said chasing bite-friendly numbers was unrealistic: “The judgment of whether a force is ‘failing’ cannot be reduced to an apparent inability to reduce crimes such as homicide by 20% (again, as suggested Truss).
“While I recognize that police forces can always do more to reduce crime, it is not within our gift to reduce the most serious crimes by a sound-friendly round number of 20%.
He said that while there was more to do, homicides fell by 12% in the year to March 2021: “This may be politically inconvenient when defending the need to reduce crime, but provides important context.”
Lewis added: “Furthermore, the government holding only police chiefs to account for reducing specific types of crime is akin to holding doctors to account only for patients who develop cancer – an obviously unwise thing to do. As in the health, there are important external factors involved when considering crime, including social factors such as poverty, over which the police service has no control”.
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Lewis said that improving the police response to robberies, for example by ensuring all victims receive a visit from an officer, would require resources: “This has been harder to achieve since the Tories’ austerity programme, already that the number of police officers was significantly reduced.
“However, we should stop calling the investment an ‘increase’ of 20,000 civil servants in the way the government characterizes it (and I think the public sees through this clever use of terminology).”
Lewis said the new government had to decide whether it wanted localism, as introduced by Theresa May when she was home secretary, or would pass new laws to bring the police under greater control and direction from central government.
“There is also an inherent contradiction between Truss’s call for government intervention in the performance of any police force and the localized role of the police and crime commissioners (a Tory creation, after all),” he said .
Lewis said there were signs of hope in some medium and long-term initiatives on drug use, brought forward by Boris Johnson’s government, which showed “a real commitment to solving society’s long-term problems, which is appreciated.”
Explaining why he has spoken out, Lewis said: “Talks between the police service and ministers are generally carried out quietly, but when public policy ideas like Truss’s ‘back to basics’ are promoted, we have a duty to respectfully challenge them to help elevate them.public discourse.
“Arbitrary requirements to reduce crime by specific amounts, which often lead to perverse behavior (such as focusing on easier-to-achieve outcomes rather than more difficult but worthy ones) should be avoided.
Truss has been contacted for comment.