Police fail to solve three in four crimes

[green]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/9415793/Police-fail-to-solve-three-in-four-crimes.html

 

Officers solved 27 per cent of crimes last year despite the fact overall crime fell to its lowest level for more than two decades.

The rate is the lowest since 2006-07 and means criminals responsible for up to three million offences escaped justice.

The figures were published on the Home Office website at the same time that ministers were heralding separate statistics that showed dramatic falls in crime.

It suggests that police performance is deteriorating even though there are fewer offences being committed.

Critics said the police should be clearing up a greater proportion of crimes as total offences fell, and warned that victims would lose confidence in the criminal justice system.

 

Figures published on Thursday showed that the overall number of crimes committed fell by four per cent in 2011-12 to 3.97 million, the lowest number since 1989.

A separate Home Office document shows that, during the same year, police solved 1,075,927 offences. One in seven burglaries was solved and fewer than half of the perpetrators of violent offences were caught.

Only a fifth of robberies were cleared up and three in 10 sexual offences.

Police had more success with drug offences, of which 92 per cent were solved.

The decline meant that the total number of crimes solved fell by seven per cent last year, almost twice the rate at which overall crime fell.

Staffordshire’s Deputy Chief Constable, Douglas Paxton, a spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers, said: “Good policing has always relied on officers using their common sense and discretion.

"Used appropriately, that can allow the police to resolve incidents speedily and effectively, to the satisfaction of victims, without a formal process leading to a sanction detection.”

Other figures on Thursday showed the number of murders and other killings fell to a 30 year low of 550 last year.

Police solved 522 of those — or 95 per cent. However, the low success rates for investigations of break-ins meant burglars responsible for more than 430,000 crimes escaped justice last year.

 

 

In the age of CCTV everywhere and DNA science, why is the solving rate so low?

[bigsexydoug]

i would say im suprised but im not, when the police turned on the public and became a organisation not a service the public in turn turned there back on them too, thats why they didnt gain any support from the public when they wanted to strike and demanded better treatment a few years back.

 

public - "my cars been stolen" -

police - "have a crime number"

[MrSmith]

 

 

In the age of CCTV everywhere and DNA science, why is the solving rate so low?

 

Maybe CCTV and DNA are helping the innocent people prove they are innocent, whereas before they were proven guilty despite being innocent.

[AbdullaJones]

i would say im suprised but im not, when the police turned on the public and became a organisation not a service the public in turn turned there back on them too, thats why they didnt gain any support from the public when they wanted to strike and demanded better treatment a few years back.

 

public - "my cars been stolen" -

police - "have a crime number"

 

For the most par the police are totally useless.

In fact id go so far as to say a massive proportion of them are corrupt.

Im actually taking a personal interest in having one of these corrupt officers sacked then charged with criminal offenses.

[GrapeApe]

The title of this thread is not quite accurate given that a huge number of crimes are not even reported

[LeMaquis]

In the age of CCTV everywhere and DNA science, why is the solving rate so low?

 

CCTV everywhere? Not all CCTV can be used in court anyway. Sometimes the images aren't clear enough. And DNA testing is only useful if the criminal leaves DNA behind and his/her DNA is already on the police database or s/he gets arrested and gives a sample.

 

The police aren't all that determined to solve crime though. They did their best to cover up the fact that PC Harwood had a lot of previous before his trial for killing Ian Tomlinson.

[Mecky]

CCTV everywhere? Not all CCTV can be used in court anyway. Sometimes the images aren't clear enough. And DNA testing is only useful if the criminal leaves DNA behind and his/her DNA is already on the police database or s/he gets arrested and gives a sample.

 

The police aren't all that determined to solve crime though. They did their best to cover up the fact that PC Harwood had a lot of previous before his trial for killing Ian Tomlinson.

 

It could be that some cameras are switched on in the evening only to catch people coming out of the boozers. It's also probable that some of the cameras are just dummies which are placed in highly visible positions just to deter people.

[PinkJo]

A lot of CCTV cameras are of too poor quality to actually identify anyone.

[callippo]

the OP forgot about the need for informers. Without them nobody can run a police service anywhere in the world.

[hard2miss]

the OP forgot about the need for informers. Without them nobody can run a police service anywhere in the world.

You seem well informed, whats the percentage drop in police informants then ?

 

If the OP has not forgot about informers in the equation then I presume you can clarify that its down to falling numbers of informers ?

 

Or did you just want to put something that made you look clever and stick up for the police without even thinking it through ?