Deputy Commissioner of London's Metropolitan Police service, Craig Mackay, appearing on Newsnight, recommended a move towards the public helping the police more, such as handing over CCTV footage from personal cameras to help with investigations. Mr Mackay said, “Getting people active in crime prevention and crime detection work with us has got to be part of the future.”
This advice was a response to the proposed cuts to police budgets. The details have been dominating the news lately, with the Metropolitan police expecting a loss of three thousand officers in London as Government funding is cut by £184m. It's a similar story across the UK, with the Merseyside force funding facing a £5million reduction and Lancashire force predicted to lose £25m annually, a move that Police and Crime Commissioners have said will lead to a loss of “almost all of its proactive crime fighting and crime prevention capacity by 2020.”
Not only will the police be stretched to handle calls, but attendance at the scene, then any likelihood of investigation is pretty remote. While CCTV cameras can help but a struggling police force cannot attend quickly enough.
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