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   Police cuts will boost crime, warns think tank
by Tom Rodgers
Government cuts in police budgets will naturally lead to rising crime, said a leading think tank today. 2011: The start of a Great Decade for Criminals is the study released today by centre-right think tank Civitas. The Government has announced a 20% real terms reduction in police funding over the next four years, starting with a 6% cut in the national funding grant this year. Satisfying this proposal is likely to involve dramatic staff reductions, including of frontline police officers. Greater Manchester Police was told it had to slash budgets by £134m in November this year. Staff were called to congregate at Bolton's Reebok Stadium by the force, who then told them who would be fighting against colleagues for their jobs, who would be transferred to other departments and who would be made redundant. Nearly 3000 staff will lose their jobs across Salford and Greater Manchester. Policing and Criminal Justice Minister Nick Herbert has admitted the cuts will be 'challenging' for police forces. In the Civitas briefing, the think tank show that there is a strong relationship between the size of police forces and national crime rates. A cutting from the release reads: "The data suggest an association between police officers per head of population and crimes per head. A nation with a larger proportion of police officers is somewhat more likely to have a lower crime rate. "A nation with fewer police is more likely to have a higher crime rate. For example, England and Wales currently has a smaller number of police officers per 100,000 than the European average and has a higher crime rate than average. There is a prima facie case to suggest that this relationship may be causal since the main purpose of a police force is to protect the public and prevent crime. In other words, it is plausible to suggest from the data that reducing the number of police officers in any given country could lead to an increase in the crime rate." You can read the full data set yourself by following the link below.
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