Fewer Officers, More Calls: U.K. Police Are Stretched by Austerity

Theresa May is doing drastic harm to the United Kingdom. It demonstrates a really deep stupidity. She is representative of the British upper class attitudes to the middle and lower classes. It is an "Us and Them" like few societies in history and it is leading to the effective collapse of British society, or maybe Britain itself. The Scots and the Welsh and the Irish aren't so punitive as the English, they tend to treat each other better, to be more understanding of the realities of existence. At this rate it can't be long before the other countries in the United Kingdom decide they'd rather be part of a United Europe - and then it will be England all on it's lonesome. And it could all be stopped tomorrow - dump the whole idea of Brexit, negotiate new immigration laws, adopt the real European socialist model of social welfare and lift the British lower class out of poverty and afford them some dignity. It is just sad to watch what the English are doing to themselves and everybody close to them out of sheer stupidity.

I don't dispute the depiction of the effects of austerity and its impact on crime and policing but I would like to know the source for Mr Mueller's claim that the West Midlands is now among the poorest regions in Britain. Also, the photo of a downtown city from a graffiti-strewn parking lot seems like a rather cheap journalistic trope: not fake journalism exactly but a case of finding the facts and the images that fit.

Well, people with heads on their shoulders have been predicting hard times for Britain ever since the Brexiteers started mucking around. Things will probably get worse from here on in, although nobody wishes that on anybody. What has happened to our politicians? Didn't they ever learn where all the hard-earned benefits of modern society came from? Their bank accounts are so filled that they have completely forgotten how that money got there.

The ghost of Thatcher is coming back to haunt the U.K.. Throwing a Brexit and its uncertain future, this may just the beginning unless the Brits wake up

The U.K. is in a real mess. I've read that up to 80% of all police activity involves intervention in one form or another with mentally ill people. Not only are they 20,000 police officers short, but this also extends into the prison system. It's not unheard of that only 2 night officers are left in charge or an entire prison. In some instances, officers have lost complete control and inmates control the show. In the meantime, Theresa May and her Conservative government denies there is even a problem.

"Austerity" is a conservative weasel word for slashing social programs that affect primarily people who are poor and sick. The Times should not use the word except with reference to what the Conservatives call it.

Two years ago, I spent 6 months in London on vacation and toured many parts of that beautiful country. A couple of decades earlier, I had worked and lived there. The country has indeed changed. London is not safe anymore - you have to look over your shoulder - there is a general rise of unkempt areas. I went to Birmingham - but beyond the new railway station and surroundings historical areas - on your way to Cadbury factory - what is described here - is easy to see. I know this so called austerity is always blamed. But I think Britain has failed it's people on economy - and I attribute it to - being so London centric or more the so called City centric. Britain spends billions on London transit system but in Birmingham - there is no bus to take you from city center to the airport - may be 10-15 miles away. There are areas in England where there is hardly any public transportation. During my stay a couple of years back - I exclusively used public transportation. But what should be a couple of hours journey would take a whole day - because transport was so poor. I don't know what the solution is - but constantly talking about austerity and how NHS is not being funded - is not going to make things better. Provide economic opportunities so folks have an incentive to be good citizens.

The same austerity measures that have been applied to Britain since Ms Thatcher first came to power. Those austerities measures have made London a very wealthy place that has attracted rich people from all over the world. But in the countryside, British are suffering and there is no end to their suffering. Mr. Macron taught he could apply the same policies to France with the support of the world elite. But Macron found out that France is not G.B when the "Gilets Jaunes" came out en masse against his policies. If people could take 1 hour/ week to educate themselves about their politicians, they would not be voting for crooks and liars.

Honestly, the article seems to do an excellent job casting these mid-size, second tier cities of the Western world as dumps of unemployment, welfare, drugs and alcohol. Warping the reputation of a hard-working city into a backdrop of gravel brownland and graffiti ridden walls with the city skyline in the background... Birmingham is a wonderful city for people who don't want to get caught in the posh stew and cut-throat battle of London's ridiculous cost of living. It reminds me of my own city to a degree. A former hub of coal, slate and smoke-stained buildings turned murals and hubs of creativity and technology. As many people have already echoed, Birmingham, and the rest of central and northern England, have taken the slow blunt force trauma of the Reagan-Thatcher band of boisterous buffoons' rallying cry for privatization and austerity. As in America, there was an glorious time when these social programs worked and worked well, slowly plucked away by the exact kind of men FDR warned us about over a half-century ago...

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.This is equally true with the stakes even higher when talking about foreign relations, mental health, and social justice. It is something even common sense wisdom can understand and there are multiple studies showing impact to boot. Like Midas we apparently will try to hold the gold no matter if it causes a fate worse than death.

In the future there will be no crime Every single store and shop will have multiple HD cameras. Every street will have mounted cameras, and of course every citizen will have a cell phone camera. If crime gets too bad, every citizen will have to wear an identification tag, kind of like a human license plate. EZ pass like devices will read the tags. People of course being what they are will still commit crimes but they will probably be caught by the time they get home. People will gladly wear there human license plates, sacrificing liberty for crimeless cities, and smaller police forces. This is the future. So smile your on candid camera.

In the US, jails are the MH Centers of national choice. Police officers are social workers with guns.

And yet they seem to have plenty of officers to investigate controversial social media postings.

Weekly, 3/4 of the local police reports in my town involve serious mental health issues, forced psychiatric admissions on top of the daily drug overdoses. It's an open air asylum during the winter months here on Cape Cod. Trauma and chaos with violence, homelessness and drugs, it's a toxic stew. And the state is closing mental health facilities here. It's beyond bad in the US. Talk to any police, fire or EMT.

Dear English people. The folks who told you that safety-net services needed to be cut are the ones telling you that leaving the EU for some glorious, independent future is the right thing to do. Think of that while wondering when the "winning" starts from these people and their policies.

The same has been going on in the USA for years. Cuts upon cuts to social services that used to help these unfortunates in need. Now, it falls on the police, who have also had their resources cut to the bone. But hey, so long as the multi-billionaires can get the estate tax repealed, who cares? Right?

Here’s a Wikipedia blurb summing the monetary policy of the EU: “To prevent the joining states from getting into financial trouble or crisis after entering the Monetary Union, they were obliged in the Maastricht Treaty to fulfill important important financial obligations and procedures, especially to show budgetary discipline and a high degree of sustainable economic convergence, as well as to avoid excessive government deficits and limit the government debt to sustainable levels.” Neoliberal doublespeak for the ‘wealth of austerity’ in member state privatization and/or slashing of public services. The prescribed ending of the Commonwealth, set by Brussels and the Central Bank, for the great profit of the uncommon few. BREXIT.

When one listens to the BBC, they spend a huge portion of their time on covering problems in Zimbabwe (or some Leftist Government) or their most favorite: Venezuela, it would behoove them examining themselves. Their coverage of Britain is usually only to fawn over some event about the Royals, only. Now, with Brexit looming, Britain is fast slipping into a shadow of its former self. As the chickens come home to roost and an inherently unfair Aristocratic/Capitalist society become more and more apparent, maybe a parallel can be drawn between them and the US.

I was born in Solihull, a very middle class town on the outskirts of Birmingham, and like here in the US, the problem of mental health, and lack of funding for its treatment is a major issue - regardless of which city we are speaking of. Underfunding of the Police in favor of maintaining a disproportionately large armed forces is partly to blame in the UK. But thankfully, the mentally ill can't just go and buy a gun as they can here, which gives the Police one less thing to worry about, at least.

London is a world apart from the big cities in northern England. Parts of Birmingham resemble the south Bronx of the 80s. With Brexit looming, England is in a downward spiral. They need Europe much more than Europe needs them.

Like in America, the UK workers seem to vote for the party of the rich because if one day they become rich, they won't have to pay high taxes.

I fear that worse is yet to come. I fear that Brexit is a discovered method to i introduce sweeping reforms in health, education, policing and public safety while continuing the flow of wealth from the mass of the people upwards into the offshore accounts of a tiny minority. The only growth sectors will be in surveillance, riot control and in the total control over the benighted British people. Truly tragic to see this once great nation brought so low.

I do believe conservatives worldwide are trying to destroy the modern democratic state with the 2 primes examples being the UK and America. Of course, Austria, Poland and Italy are not far behind. Thanks to Obama employing the tenets of John Maynard Keynes our economy in spite of Trump is rebounding. Keynes is an Englishman so what was their excuse? Putin's offer was sweeter?

And this situation comes on top of the draconic laws in England, restricting the ownership and use of firearms for self-defense and the defense of others. The days of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson carrying revolvers in the pockets of their coats are gone, and not for a better safety of the public.

Austerity has really broken the back of this country you know. Think of the London Olympics, 2012 - we were two years into austerity, it hadn’t started to bite. The country just seemed outward, happier, united, excited at the world visiting us. Now? Miserable, melancholy, weary, angry, looking for scapegoats. We’ve always been a gloomy lot, but everything just feels utterly oppressive these days. Money’s tight, jobs don’t pay, prices rise, job insecurity and a yawning rich/poor divide on open display - but a stultified political system, where The Club will always ensure only a slim spectrum of change is allowed. “Oh but unemployment is low” - except so many of those are zero-hour jobs, temp jobs, a job where you could be offered only an hour’s work a week. Meanwhile some huckster business is trying to prise more money out of you, assisted by a government with its fervour for privatisation. We don’t mind tax if we actually get something - but now you can pay £120 for a train ticket to London, but have to stand all the way. £3.00 to get the bus to a local destination, except it’s one bus a week because the rest have been cut. Police numbers, prison staff, firemen etc etc. No wonder so many voted for Brexit. The same establishment told them to stay in the EU and maintain the status quo - but why vote for a status quo that squashes you into a gutter? I wish this was hyperbole. We’re too docile. “Keep calm and carry on”, “mustn’t grumble” as the debts pile up.

The hypocrisy in all this is that the neo conservatives, in particular, always brag about their adherence to ensuring law & order is a priority. They boast about loving those in law enforcement and the military, yet, most of the drastic cuts in the budgets of the aforementioned entities occur when conservatives are in power. That hypocrisy is not limited to the U.K.; the neo conservatives and Far Right in the U.S. and Canada are just as guilty. The trick, it seems, is putting it out there as often as possible that they support law & order and the military so that most citizens do not realize those very politicians are stripping funds through the back door. Then the Liberals, under all their umbrella groups, come to power but neglect to refill the coffers for law enforcement, the social support system that should be performing certain services nor the military and the cycle continues until stories such as this one become the new normal.

And I can’t wait till there is a hard Brexit… My god what is to happen?!

Welcome to policing. Cuts in the social safety net; whether education, health care, addiction services, or mental health, all result in cops being asked to do too much. 911 has become the backstop for many of these problems. Police Departments in the US spend an inordinate amount of time responding repeatedly to calls that are sourced in a lack of investment in our neediest. An emergency response, by officers who do not have the requisite tools to address the underlying conditions and circumstances, is NOT the correct solution. Is anyone surprised when these interactions sometimes result in tragic outcomes? We are asking too much and doing a disservice to Police Oficers AND the Public

If you have ever seen Birmingham, you would know that the place resembles something of a Detroit minus. Imagine Detroit without the Big 3 auto companies - that is Birmingham. In fact, to a regular American, a city like this, with the poverty, garbage everywhere, and buildings falling apart on nearly every corner is almost unimaginable. It is not to be compared to the standard European city. Austerity is at fault for a lot of this, but you should not kid yourself, the UK has, outside of a select few places, been a disaster for a while. Austerity, as this article rightly argues, has made it much, much worse.

Theresa May is overseeing the total destruction of Britain from within. Will anyone be held responsible?

Great Britain has no modern industries to speak of, they are relying entirely on their financial services sector to bring in the bulk of their tax revenue. And once that is cut off after Brexit the cuts will get only worse. Britain produces virtually nothing of modern value. Where is the revenue going to come from?

Gee, it’s almost as if all those dismantled social services were created for a reason in the first place. I’m noticing a pattern: Liberals identify a visible problem and implement a program to remedy, conservatives then take the resulting decrease in the problem’s visibility to claim the program is no longer needed.

In contrast to their approach to crimes of property, it appears from news reports over there that police in the UK are 100% committed to tracking down and prosecuting those they deem to have committed social crimes such as "racist, homophobic or transphobic" comments online. 21st century priorities.

"Austerity" always sounds like such a good idea until you are personally affected by it.

I joined London's Metropolitan Police in 1975. I retired a few years ago. It is wrong to conflate the problems highlighted in this article with austerity, suggesting that everything was fine before it. Back in the 1970s social services regularly abdicated their responsibilities and my more experienced colleagues assured me it had been ever thus. It was still the same when I retired. The article correctly notes that it was the Thatcher government's 'Care in the Community' that struck the hardest blow against the mentally ill. Overworked social workers know that the police are at the end of a telephone line whereas they of course can hide behind opaque bureaucracies. Surprise surprise, it's the police that end up picking up the burden. When ambulance drivers, firemen and prison warders go on strike, it's the police that are called in to fill the gap and do their jobs. The reduction in police numbers aggravates the problems faced by police officers who were told by the Maybot when she was Home Secretary: " the police should only have one single mission – to cut crime.." If only! She's also responsible for restricting stop and search, coincidentally knife crime has sky-rocketed since, and she maintains crime is going down. Reported crime is, but there are scores of different crimes in the internet age that all have to be investigated (in theory). The best way to do away with it all together is to abolish the police. There'd be no crime at all then.

Wait for it here, as soon as our economy dips. We saw a large spike in crime here once Reagan’s plans de-institutionalized so many mental patients in the 80s. Except here it will be with guns, not knives like the UK.

An escaped psychiatric patient should be returned to the facility after being cleated thru the Emergency Room, bottle of vodka notwithstanding. The person is an aided, not a perpetrator so no reason to be in a police facility. The style of policing reminds me of NYC in late 80's; lots of calls for social services & from crime victims. We routinely handled 30 jobs a night but we were tight. When you realize that if you don't do it (investigate, make notifications to social services, etc.) no one will, you take "ownership." For example, picking up victims in your car to take them to the Grand Jury so they get there & an indictment occurs. Anything, that's the way it was. Wishing all officers "over there" a safe tour.

Ah, Socialism. Just turn your freedom, money, and troubles over to a merciful, all knowing government and relax.... all will be well. But of course, Socialist will say that this is the fault of the rich who pay for the vast bulk of these failing social programs and agencies, because they are still rich. Nobody should be rich. If nobody was rich, then that would solve the problem. After all we've seen how well this has worked in... in... sorry I can't think of anywhere this has worked. What service or product, exactly, is in surplus in the UK or the EU for that matter? What service or product is expensive and limited in the UK or the EU? Just about everything from police, to doctors and nurses, to the military, to fuel. Socialism is Fool's Gold; a fantasy idealism; it defies simple logic and math. But most of all it removes freedom, liberty, and wealth from the individual, and destroys prosperity for the nation that naively chooses it.

What a sad tale, in many ways mirroring things we've experience in the US. The police were never meant to be the go to resource for dealing with the mentally ill, but, as in the US, the fact that 911 is always answered and the police are available 24/7 makes them about the only resource to call upon. When an entity, devised for other purposes, is forced to devote more time to a situation for which it is neither responsible nor well-equipped to handle, we see like results. Factors external to the police, such as the slashing of bed space for the mentally ill (gee, will we get to tiresome trope in this article falsely blaming Ronald Reagan for that in the UK too?) is a public problem and disgrace, but when government prefers to "save" money and spend it in other areas this is the result. Of course, the police get blamed when it all goes wrong, there or here. There is no quick or easy solution to this. But it increasingly sounds like many cities in the UK will resemble NYC and other major cities in the US in the 1970's, when disorder and decay reigned. Are there any leaders that will step forward? It seems that there is a dearth of politicians who are willing and able to do what is needed, preferring, as here, to engage in platitudes and rhetoric (and watching their poll numbers, first) rather than handling the mess they had a huge part in creating.

The good news is that the British rich are doing well under the Conservatives. After the no deal Brexit transpires, they may start getting a little nervous as food stocks decline on supermarket shelves not to be replaced in the foreseeable future. Cake anyone?

So it was May who cut police and social service budgets...Such a shining star...

With our exit from the European Union we'll be applying to become the 51st state. A word to the wise when you consider our application: the new state will resemble Mississippi or Alabama rather than New Hampshire or Massachusetts.

The most unfortunate problem is that there is no alternative to the Conservative Party's austerity. One, the opposition party, Labour, has an un-electable leader who has personally guaranteed that the shambolic mess of the current government will be voted into office yet again at the next election regardless, by people exasperated by conservative chaos but preferring Tory bungling to a Labour government led by Can't-Decide Corbyn. Fence-sitting and indecision seem to be his primary skills. Two, no matter which party wins the next election, there will be no money. Brexit guarantees that the UK will slip off a fiscal cliff, thanks to the Tory party bungling of its own divisions. The UK faces an apocalypse of major proportion, politically, economically, fiscally, and socially, but Prime Minister May is determined to put her party politics ahead of national interest and, alas, there is no-one in politics to stop her. She (and Corbyn) could give Trump a lesson or two in How to Crash a Country.