Surrey Police and Crime Commissioner Lisa Townsend has said a plan to take responsibility off police to handle an increasing amount of mental health cases should give officers up to “a million” more hours to deal with previously over-looked lower-level crime.
It comes as forces across the UK are set to promise to investigate every offence where there is a reasonable lead to follow. Report by Buseld. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
It comes as forces across the UK are set to promise to investigate every offence where there is a reasonable lead to follow. Report by Buseld. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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NewsTranscript
00:00 So following the announcement this week that Right Care Right Person is going to be rolled
00:03 out across England and Wales, which is going to see the police dealing with crime and not
00:08 dealing with the increasing amount of mental health cases that we're dealing with. We'll
00:12 only be dealing with those that require a police response. The government has estimated
00:16 that a million hours of police time is going to be freed up and of course that time can
00:20 and should be better spent supporting the public, detecting crime, preventing crime
00:24 and supporting victims. As yet there's no particular plan but of course with the extra
00:28 hours that police are expecting to get back from not dealing with the mental health cases
00:32 and not dealing with concerns for welfare, I think it is absolutely right and the public
00:36 expect police to be dealing with every crime where there is a possible investigative lead,
00:40 where there is evidence, regardless of whether it's anti-social behaviour or shoplifting
00:46 or theft or burglary or whatever it is. It is something that should have been done before
00:49 but with the resources and the challenges that police have had I do understand that
00:52 it has been very, very difficult for an awful lot of police forces but ultimately the public
00:57 expect it, as a police and crime commissioner I expect it, the force should be following
01:01 up every time a crime has been committed where there is evidence to point them in the direction