Promises on cameras and patrols likely to be broken
TORIES IN BLACKPOOL
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Crime Correspondent
The Prime Minister's pledge to provide an extra 5,000 police officers to walk the beat and 10,000 more surveillance cameras are extremely unlikely to be fulfilled, government figures suggest.
His two law and order initiatives received enthusiastic responses from the Tory delegates and undisguised joy from the police. But a detailed breakdown of the funding suggests that neither scheme will deliver the hoped-for impact.
Responding to the public's growing desire for more police on patrol, Mr Major said he was going to increase the current total of nearly 130,000 officers in England and Wales by 5,000 over the next three years. To pay for the rise he has promised to add pounds 100m to the annual police budget of pounds 6.4bn.
The extra money would pay for 5,000 police constables, earning about pounds 20,000 each a year, but it does not take into account the cost of training and equipment or inflation. It is also extremely unlikely that chief constables will spend all the money on patrol officers. Many forces have had to make cuts in services and equipment and are under-resourced in areas such as civilian staff.
Jack Straw, Labour's shadow Home Secretary said "We will believe his promise to provide more police officers and CCTV cameras when we see it."
The announcement that an extra 10,000 closed-circuit televisions are to be installed in town centres around the country follows the success of cameras in reducing crime.
Research in Newcastle upon Tyne showed there were significant falls in various kinds of crime in the city centre area covered by the network of 16 cameras. Newcastle police claim that in the three years since the cameras were fitted there had been 6,000 fewer victims than might have been predicted.
But critics believe the use of CCTV to cut crime is still unproved and may just displace offences. There is also concern about civil liberties, highlighted by the disclosure last week that a businessman intends to use clips of violent assaults taken on CCTV on a video which will be sold as entertainment.
It is unclear how new cameras will be paid for. The Home Office expects to get pounds 20m over three years to pay for the initiative. In a similar scheme last year the Home Secretary provided pounds 5m to help partnerships install CCTV nationwide. This money brought in pounds 13.8m of funding from private firms and councils but only provided about 1,000 cameras. With just four times the money, the Government will need to get 10 times the equipment.
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