Mark Ranola

With the announcement from Boris Johnson that an extra 20,000 police officers will be recruited, this should, in theory, restore officer numbers to the pre-austerity levels and with it, a turning of the tide of increased crime and violence.
At this stage, only time will tell if this will be the case and there are both political and logistic hurdles to overcome.
The media says that a no-deal Brexit may lead to a vote of no confidence and the possibility of a general election – this is only just over two and a half months away and a new leader, or political party will have their own views.
Secondly, officer numbers is one thing, but you can`t just `buy` people – there are support staff needed, such as trainers, equipment and buildings to put them in and all these additional resources and buildings have been dispensed of over the years of cut backs.
I remain optimistic, although cautious, because the system is currently under such strain that any increase will help, but there needs to be transparency too, because any improvements will take time.
To train a police officer and for them to become effective takes time, so there will be no quick improvements. It also needs to be acknowledged that each year there is natural attrition through retirement or those officers leaving for other reasons, which amounts to several thousand nationally.
Austerity has meant that crime has increased, particulary violent crime and drug supply. This relates to mainly young people carrying knives and the county lines drug supply.
Only this week, there have been media reports on a 70% increase of women becoming involved in violence and carrying knives.
These types of crime have become embedded in some communities and getting rid of it will be hard because you are not in the former position of keeping it away, you are now dealing with a problem that has roots and removing it, which is much harder.
Before her departure as prime minister, Theresa May chaired a working group of professionals from many different organisations to look at a collective approach to the problem, recognising that police officer numbers were not the only solution and that the reasons why people are involved in crime are varied.
Family, education, youth services, employment and substance use diversion are some of the collective reasons and the services for organisations who have responsibility for these things will need increased funding and resourcing too.
Figure grabbing headlines sometimes give the public the impression that under a new government there will be improvements that we will see quite quickly and no doubt, there will be some negative news stories in a couple of years’ time, where people will ask why bad things still happen when things were supposed to get better?
The reality is that there will need to be patience because any improvements will take time, perhaps taking several years.
The current troubled young people and their families will be a focus for much of this work, but in equal measure, working with young people and families to create diversions away from crime and supporting them is also essential so that the next generation will not be affected in the same way as those we are talking about now.