Criticising the police is easy, but who has cut their funds?

In the Independent on Wednesday 5 January 2011 Joan Smith a regular contributor, wrote an article on the police investigation of Joanna Yeates' murder in Bristol, headed “Police must reassure not issue advice.”

The subject of her piece was  “that it's incredible, in the 21st century, that the police are still issuing … thoughtless and insulting advice” to women not to go out after dark. “Sadly”, she continues, “it's easier to impose an unofficial curfew than to think about how the streets can be made safer, even if that means accepting the astonishing proposition that our cities and towns are no-go areas for women during the hours of darkness. Could there be a more damning indictment of the police in this country?”

Everyone wants more officers on the streets,” she writes, “ but they're especially needed at night when women are leaving restaurants, waiting for buses and walking home from bus stops. Last year, when I reported a spate of car crime in my street, a PC let slip that there are no routine patrols after 6pm, even though it's a popular late-night cut-through for pedestrians from one main road to another.”

She then makes the comment that,  “Such advice is more than an imposition; it's an outrage.”….

And her solution.” What’s needed is the reassurance of extra patrols, police travelling on buses at night, and a much greater readiness on the part of officers to look out for and challenge men on dark streets. And if you think that's a breach of civil liberties, it's no more so than expecting half the population to stay at home after dark.

She says she understands “why the murder of Joanna Yeates has gripped the nation, and I want her killer or killers to be caught. In the meantime, local women are right to be anxious – and entitled to advice that recognises how they live and work. If Avon and Somerset police can't provide that, I hope women in Bristol will come on to the streets and once again Reclaim the Night.”

You may ask why this article?

Without in any way questioning Ms Smith’s concerns about women’s safety, it seems quite extraordinary that when all police forces are being forced to make decisions to cut their numbers, she hasn’t mentioned that these cuts are going to make it even less likely that additional police will be available for the duties she is advocating.

Furthermore, the police are putting vast resources into catching Joanna Yeates killer, the successful outcome of which is surely the best way to reassure women in the area that the police are doing their job, and are protecting the public. If the only reassurance she seeks is a return to more bobbies on the beat 24/7 it is a pity that she hasn’t used her legitimate concerns to highlight and campaigned for more police and fewer economies that inevitably must deplete front line policing.

Her damning indictment should have been directed not at the police, but at a Tory led government and the minister responsible, who cannot see, and will not admit, that less police will mean more opportunities for criminals of all kinds.