Police Actually Doing Their Job? England and Wales Chiefs Pledge Officers Will Attend Every Burglary

All 43 chief constables in England and Wales have signed a pledge to dispatch officers to the site of every house that is burgled after coming under fire for failing to focus police manpower on actual crimes instead of monitoring memes on social media.

For the first time in British history, all police chiefs in England and Wales have made a commitment to have officers personally investigate the site of home burglaries, in the wake of an August report from Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary, Andy Cooke, which found that the rate of solving thefts or burglaries was “unacceptable and unsustainable”, with just 6.3 per cent of home burglaries resulting in criminal charges.

This was followed by another report from former Metropolitan Police Detective Chief Inspector David Spencer, who argued that forces should “police streets, not tweets” if they want to regain the trust of the British public.

Announcing the pact to investigate every home burglary, Martin Hewitt of the National Police Chiefs’ Council told the Daily Mail: “Wherever you live in England and Wales you can be confident the police will attend if you experience the invasion of a home burglary.

“This should see more burglaries being solved and more offenders prosecuted.’ Writing in tomorrow’s Daily Mail, Mr Hewitt declares: ‘We want to give people the peace of mind of knowing if you experience that invasion, the police will come, find all possible evidence and make every effort to catch those responsible.

“That’s a critical part of the contract between the police and public.”

According to information reported by the British tabloid on Tuesday, over the past five years there were 1.76 million burglaries reported in England and Wales, yet 1.41 million cases were shut down without a suspect being identified. The paper went on to report that last year, just 7,887 burglars were actually convicted.

In response to the pledge from the 43 police chief constables, Andy Cooke, who authored the report in August, said: “Today’s announcement shows that police leaders have started to act on our findings. This is a positive step for – wards in solving more burglaries and making sure victims get the service they deserve.”

The pledge from the police chiefs came as Home Secretary Suella Braverman demanded at a speech from the Conservative party conference in Birmingham on Tuesday that forces return to “common sense” policing.

“We need to get back to common sense policing, empowering the Police to tackle the real issues facing the public – not policing pronouns on twitter or non-crime hate incidents,” Braverman said.

While the Home Secretary welcomed the move from police forces to investigate burglaries in person, she said that “the law-abiding majority expect every force to investigate every neighbourhood crime – and so do I. Drugs, car theft, vandalism and anti-social behaviour cannot be ignored.”

Braverman went on to criticise the effects of political correctness on policing in general, pointing to the failures of forces to investigate predominantly Muslim Pakistani grooming gangs that preyed on mostly young, white girls for fear of being perceived as racist.

“To those who dismiss political correctness as a conservative obsession, I say this. Visit Rochdale. Visit Telford. The grooming gangs scandal is a stain on this country and it’s what happens when political correctness becomes more important than criminal justice. More PCs, less PC,” Braverman said.

The issue of woke policing was highlighted by Reclaim party leader and the star of Breitbart’s feature film My Son Hunter, Laurence Fox, who exposed the Hampshire Constabulary in July, when they arrested a British Army veteran at his home for sharing a meme mocking the authoritarian nature of LGBTQ+ ideology.

The scandal forced the local Police and Crime Commissioner, Donna Jones, to admit that arresting people for social media posts was not a good use of police manpower when so many burglaries are left unsolved.

Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka