Trust in police: Staffing, workload and morale contributing to lack of trust

Organisations representing police like POLFED say that, under these circumstances, they're not surprised trust in police is so low.

Transcript

00:00Officers that are doing more, they're working excessive hours, their crime numbers in terms

00:10of investigation are piling up. So on average, they're having to investigate 20 crimes, that's

00:1620 victims, if not more, and it's just too much for them.

00:20Is there anything that police forces in particular are already doing, or they should look at

00:25doing in your view, to help support their staff?

00:28What we need are chief constables to be targeting governments to look to get long-term funding

00:37so that they can actually plan and prepare, not just for the next 12 months, but for the

00:41next five years. We'd also like to see, when we have our officers that sadly fall over

00:47and do need the time away from work, we need to get them the rehabilitation as soon as

00:52possible, specialist rehabilitation to bring them back into the workforce as soon as possible.

00:58Low levels of public trust in police officers can be a vicious cycle. Polfaird has reported

01:03an increase in the number of violent crimes towards their members.

01:06On average, we're experiencing over 100 assaulted officers per week, and that should never happen.

01:13It's a sorry, sad state of affairs when you've got a police officer on the street trying

01:17to help the public and they're getting attacked for simply doing their job.

01:22In recent years, crime and policing have risen up the national agenda, and so how can the

01:26public address their confidence concerns?

01:28Obviously the public want police officers on the streets. They want to be the ears and

01:32the eyes of the community. So what I would say is get behind your police officers, get

01:38behind your local police officers. Speak to them. They're not robots. When you see them

01:45out on the street, speak to them and give them information. Because the more that our

01:50police officers know their community, then the more that we can actually do to work together.

01:56And that's the key thing. It's about working together rather than against each other.