by WorldTribune Staff, June 18, 2018

The UK’s depleted police force is unable to keep up with the rising crime rate as official police data show that just 9 percent of suspects in all crimes are caught and punished.

The data show a reduction in arrests of more than 50 percent in the past five years, the Daily Mail reported on June 17.

While the crime rate soared, the police force had 23,552 fewer officers in 2017 than in 2010, the report said. The number of officers in England and Wales is at its lowest level since the late 1980s.

A mere 4 percent of robberies and 3 percent of burglaries in England and Wales in 2017 were solved, the police data show.

Police failed to catch any suspects in more than 1,000 neighborhoods with at least 30 crimes, the Sunday Times reported.

Crimes by gangs on mopeds are of particular concern. Mopeds were used in 159 robberies in London’s Holloway Road and Highgate Hill last year, but just one offender was caught and punished.

Meanwhile, London’s Metropolitan Police Service, the UK’s largest police force, has seen its budget reduced by 20 percent since 2010-11.

Metropolitan Police Deputy Commissioner Sir Craig Mackey has warned additional cuts to the force’s budget would lead to less police on patrol and less work on crime prevention.

“In crude terms, let’s say you went into a briefing room and there were 10 officers waiting to go out on patrol,” Mackey said. “You take more money away, there’s eight or six, and then the ability to be preventative starts to drop.”

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  Crimes on the rise in UK as arrests sharply plummet, Metropolitan Police Service, moped gangs, Sir Craig Mackey, WorldTribune.com