Treble Chance
| Author | Frank Elmes |
| Published date | 01 July 1973 |
| Date | 01 July 1973 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0032258X7304600309 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
FRANK
ELMES
TREBLE CHANCE
Sir Ronald Howe, a former Assistant Commissioner (Crime) of
the Metropolitan Police, writes trenchant letters to the press from
time to time on the subject of law and order. Respect for the law,
it is patent to all, has decreased during the past two or three decades
and Sir Ronald's cure is a larger force of police. In April he sug-
gested that 90,000 police in our "grossly over-populated island is
ludicrous" and that steps should be taken to gradually treble police
numbers. One is not sure what he meant by "island" but
if
Sir
Ronald meant the United Kingdom he was understating police
strength by getting on for 20,000.
If
he meant England and Wales
he was some 10,000 out. Errors of this sort are easily made in a
situation which changes rapidly and in which statistics are rarely
given for the United Kingdom as a whole. What is important is
the proportion of police to population which, averaged over all
forces, is roughly one police officer to 460 members of the public.
The accountants' Police Force Statistics for England and Wales,
1971-72, which regrettably excludes the Metropolis, gives an aver-
age for police and police employed civilians of 1 to 408 of the
population. Useful as this calculation is, it necessarily leads to a
call for further refinement. In theory all law enforcement
employees, including the probation officers,Court personnel, remand
home staff, prison officers, Home Office officials and many others
should be included in calculations designed to show the total effort
the country is putting into law and order. Security officers privately
employed ought also to find a place and perhaps aproportion of
of those engaged in the business of insurance and in making and
marketing locks, safes, burglar alarms and so on. An all-embracing
figure might give us a show of one law and order employee to 200
population. All this is far too confusing and it is more practical
to rely on the figures of regular police to population, though the
back-up arrangements should certainly not be forgotten, or dis-
missed as of no importance.
A trebled Police Service for the United Kingdom would produce
a force approaching 350,000, which is a sizeable army by any
standards.
It
would provide one police officer to every 150 of the
population, one enforcer to every 150 potential law breakers. Such
aproportion is unlikely to be found anywhere in the world. France
is heavily policed with a gendarmerie for rural areas and a 93,000
strong Force Nationale for urban areas; at a guess the French
figures are around 1-300. Sweden, small but civilized, provides
1-570 and U.S.A., vast and variable, 1-600. Hong Kong with its
closely packed millions has one police officer to 280, a figure repre-
senting a police strength superior to London but very similar to
W
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