September 2015
Featured in this insight: Police, crime & community safety
Police are taking longer to charge suspects, survey finds: According to recent crime figures from the Ministry of Justice, police are taking nearly 10 per cent longer to charge suspects after investigating a case, despite a 28 per cent decrease in the amount of recorded crime.
The data indicated that across England and Wales, the time it took for police to investigate a case and charge a suspect was 94 days during the first quarter of 2015, a figure which is 10 per cent higher than that of four years ago.
The Police Federation believe that these figures reflect the cuts to police resources.
Further data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales suggests that there was a 28 per cent decrease between 2011 and 2015, from 9.5 million recorded crimes, to 6.8 million.
When looking at which county takes the longest time to charge a suspect, Essex came out at the longest, taking 121 days on average, which is nearly double the length of time it takes to charge a suspect in Cleveland.
Chairman of Essex Police Federation, Mark Smith, said of the figures:
"We've got fewer resources on the street now, so the officers that are on the streets are also the officers investigating the crimes that they've been given. So if they are picking up more and more jobs each day they may not be getting the time to go and investigate those that are waiting for them in their tray. Officers are being asked for a lot more paperwork before a decision is made on somebody being charged. We want to get the work done, we want to get the evidence and get criminals in court as quickly as possible. It is frustrating,"
Police charging times (Source: BBC)
Justice area–Time to charge in days (first quarter 2015)–2014–2013
- Essex – 121–82.5–83
- Dyfed Powys – 114–104–108
- Lincolnshire –110–86–99
- Nottinghamshire –110–106–107
- South West London –106–118–113
- Cheshire –104–89–86
- Surrey –104–102–101
- Warwickshire –103–98–99
- Humberside –103–83–87
- Hertfordshire –103–80–89
- Cambridgeshire –102–93–102
- Staffordshire –101–51–55
- Thames Valley –100–104–103
- Devon and Cornwall –100–84–86
- Leicestershire –99–105–99
