Two little anecdotes about the West Midlands Police Service, because I want to rant & don't know where else to put it!
Actually, they both come from a single person. He's a computer programmer from the Czech Republic from my extended friendship group & is currently staying with me.
Anecdote 1: Our subject lived in a less-than-great area of this city. It is low-income, with a population with (relatively) high unemployment, low educational attainments, a feeling of victimhood + a large 'gangster' culture = yup... high crime rates. The city papers are full of muggings, drug-busts, & general crime & it seems that 50% of it emanates from this area! Unfortunately loads of Eastern Europeans end up there because when they first arrive in the city, they are searching for the cheapest accommodation until they 'find their feet'.
So our programmer commuted to work a few miles from his house on his 125cc scooter everyday, until one morning it wasn't there. So.... he called the police, who told him that they wouldn't come out to see him, or search for the area for his lost scooter. He was instructed to fill in an online form & advised that he probably wouldn't see his property again. He didn't.
Anecdote 2: Our subject decided to leave this crime-ridden area so began looking for rooms-to-rent. He found an advert on Gumtree that meet his needs, saw the place & agreed to move in. He signed a tenancy agreement & paid his deposit and first months rent. Then the excuses began - the room wasn't ready, there had been a problem with the previous tenant, the landlord was going away & on & on.
Eventually our poor subject thought something was fishy and Googled the landlord, only to find out he's a serial fraudster that posts fake adverts & then steals people's money (he was advertising the room again on Gumtree a few days after it was already paid for). He has even served a 2 year prison sentence for the same offence! After weeks of texts, broken promises, screenshots apparently showing that he had returned the money etc etc our subject applies to the 'Action Fraud' service run by the UK police. And waits....& waits & waits. It's now been over 60 days & no response! So he emails them.... no response. So a few days ago he visits a police station in person to finally get some action taken.... but the police say that they can't help him! He's advised to go to a solicitor (lawyer) to pursue a claim (at a cost of over £200-per-hour he'll quickly lose more than he's attempting to claim).
The police did NOT record it as a crime & will not be pursuing the fraudster EVEN THOUGH HE'S CLEARLY A SERIAL OFFENDER. So the behaviour will not be punished, and people will continue to have money stolen by this low-life.
Assuming this is widespread behaviour among UK police we end up with a lower (reported) crime rate, and criminals operating with impunity...& people's trust in the police being steadily undermined.
If the police no longer feel it's their job to stop criminal behaviour, what's the point in them existing?
Disclaimer: I'm not anti-police. I am however anti-useless public services while still being taxed heavily. I've no problem in principle with the UK police withdrawing from large parts of the country & concentrating on the really important stuff - like crowd-control at football matches, protecting big corporate headquarters in the City of London & ruthlessly suppressing any evidence of police corruption, just so long as my taxes are reduced downwards accordingly. Communities have existed relatively peacefully without the police for thousands of years, we could quite easily self-organise what we actually NEED from local police (just like we are going to have to self-organise to establish local accident & emergency facilities as the NHS shrinks into oblivion over the next few decades).