Still plodding along? The police response to the changing profile of crime in England and Wales
| Author | Barry Loveday |
| Date | 01 June 2017 |
| Published date | 01 June 2017 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1461355717699634 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Still plodding along? The police response
to the changing profile of crime in
England and Wales
Barry Loveday
Institute of Criminal Justice Studies, University of Portsmouth, UK
Abstract
This article considers the new demands placed on police forces arising from the dramatic increase in the numbers of cases
of fraud and cybercrime. It assesses the ability – or current difficulty – of the police to respond to this development. The
article is directed towards a growing requirement for substantial internal police reform that goes well beyond anything
contemplated heretofore. The article draws on the recent and important Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary
(HMIC) PEEL Review of police efficiency, which for the first time, has raised the question of identifying not just police
capacity, but also police force capability. It is evident that although police forces can quickly identify capacity (ranks and
police numbers), they experience great difficulty in relation to capability. This relates to the police response to the ‘new’
forms of crime that are now replacing traditional acquisitive crime. Recent cases include the 2016 cyber-attack on Tesco
Bank in which £2.5 million was stolen from 9,000 bank accounts, and a major cyber-attack in the same year that disrupted
internet services across Europe and the USA. The article seeks to identify current police responses to this development
and also highlight the real challenge this problem represents. It recognizes the competing demands made on the police, but
suggests that fraud and cybercrime now constitute the greatest threat confronting the police service in England and Wales.
Keywords
Fraud, cybercrime, policing, police leadership, police culture, crime survey 2016
Submitted 29 Sep 2016, Revise received 31 Jan 2017, accepted 31 Jan 2017
Introduction
The Office of National Statistics (ONS) 2016 Survey of
Crime in England and Wales highlighted new challenges
confronting the police in the changing criminal environ-
ment within which they have to operate, and that now
occurs most frequently ‘online’ and to which this article
is immediately directed. The report highlighted a signifi-
cant change in our understanding of the profile of crime and
victimization in England and Wales. For the first time, the
full impact of fraud and cybercrime has been fully esti-
mated (ONS, 2016). The 2016 survey showed that that an
estimated 5.8 million cases of fraud and cybercrime were
committed in the previous year, pushing up the overall
crime figures to more than 12 million offences (ONS,
2016). Although there may have been 5.8 million such
crimes in previous years, we did not know about them. Now
we do, and the police and other law enforcement agencies
need to react to this changed understanding of the business
demand on their services.
Although (traditional) volume crime (burglary, robbery,
theft, etc.) has continued to fall, this has been more than
matched by the increased rate of victimization involving
online fraud and cybercrime. This is far greater than had
been recognized previously (Ford, 2016). It appears that
UK residents are now 20 times more likely to be a victim
of fraud than robbery, and 10 times more likely to experi-
ence fraud than theft from the person. In what appears to be
an ineluctable expansion in the sale and use of new tech-
nology, a new volume crime profile has replaced that with
Corresponding author:
Barry Loveday, St George’s Building, 141 High Street, Portsmouth, PO1
2HY, UK.
Email: barry.loveday@port.ac.uk
International Journalof
Police Science & Management
2017, Vol. 19(2) 101–109
ªThe Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/1461355717699634
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