Ministers cannot ignore the “huge costs” facing police forces amid a new crackdown on crime, the head of the Police Federation of England and Wales has said.
Steve Hartshorn has challenged the government’s insistence that forces have enough resources to investigate all “reasonable lines of inquiry”.
Suella Braverman, the home secretary, said it was “unacceptable” that shoplifting and phone and car theft have been treated as “less than important”. Officers have been told to analyse phone data, CCTV, doorbell and dashcam footage to find stolen property.
Hartshorn, chairman of the federation, which represents 130,000 officers, said: “There’s an ageing police vehicle fleet, communications systems that need upgrading, a lack of IT and more. There must always be sufficient funding to cope with business as usual,
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