Offenders are being brought to justice for one in nine crimes, the police watchdog has disclosed, as he demanded forces “get a grip” or further erode public trust.
Andy Cooke, chief inspector of constabulary, said he was “very concerned” that the proportion of offences being “brought to justice” was “unacceptably low” because of inadequate investigations by officers in forces across England and Wales.
“If all forces don’t quickly get a grip on this issue, the public’s confidence in policing will be further eroded,” he said in a report based on inspections of the 43 police forces in England and Wales.
He disclosed that the proportion of offences where criminals were brought to justice has fallen from more than a quarter (27.8 per cent) in 2015 to about11 per cent in 2022. This covered all “outcomes” including charges, cautions, penalty notices for disorder and community resolutions.
“These reductions reflect a decline in performance across forces in England and Wales regarding investigating crime,” said Mr Cooke.
He said investigations were being closed and logged as “complete” with “no suspect identified” when there were still lines of enquiry.
At the same time, the victims were being left in the dark as to what had been done to track down and prosecute the criminal who had blighted their lives.
“In some cases, we saw no evidence that the victim had been informed of the outcome. This can have real implications for victims’ trust and confidence in policing and their willingness to report future offences,” said Mr Cooke.
“It can lead to missed opportunities to bring offenders to justice, which can put the public at risk. And it can lead to missed opportunities to consider other sanctions when a court outcome isn’t feasible; for example, stalking protection orders or sexual harm prevention orders.”
Not a single one of the 43 forces was rated “outstanding” for the quality of their investigations. Investigating crime was the second poorest performing area in the watchdog’s inspections of all 43 forces in England and Wales in 2021/22.
‘Better outcomes for victims’
Of the 558 areas identified by inspectors as in need of improvement, 101 concerned the investigation of crime. “We remain very concerned about the unacceptably low number of crimes that are solved following investigations,” said Mr Cooke. “There needs to be a concerted effort across all forces to understand the issue and work to achieve better outcomes for victims,” said Mr Cooke.
Problems included 999 call handlers failing to give the right advice to victims on preserving evidence, which happened in 34 per cent of cases. Shortages of detectives also meant forces struggled to put the appropriate officers on investigations.
“For example, we found reports of rape being allocated to untrained and inexperienced investigators, and domestic abuse investigations being allocated to response officers whose main responsibility is to attend calls for service,” said Mr Cooke.
‘Long delays’
The worst area needing improvement was dealing with the public including 999 and 101 calls. “Too often there were long delays in calls from the public being answered. This was particularly true for non-emergency 101 calls. In too many cases vulnerability and repeat victims weren’t identified,” said the report.
“The public has a valid expectation that when it calls the emergency services, the call will be answered in a reasonable time and dealt with appropriately. All forces need to make significant improvements in this area, or it will further undermine public trust and confidence in policing.”