Letter on 'more police' full version

A letter on police nestled in the middle of a busy letters page. Unfortunately, the Croydon Guardian did not publish the full version of my letter:

20.01.10

Dear Editor,

I have just signed the online petition for more police for Croydon at www.croydon.gov.uk/more police and I would urge others to do the same. Your ‘Spare us a copper’ article correctly identified that police are allocated using borough wide data, and because “Croydon contains extremes of deprivation and affluence” we end up with an unfair deal. The imbalance of wealth between the north and south of the borough distorts the data. Pockets of poverty are more likely to be associated with higher levels of crime. A recent report in this paper highlighted that over a quarter of north Croydon children are living in poverty.

Labour and Conservative politicians from every tier of government support the campaign for more police. In fact, the call for more ‘bobbies on the beat’ is ubiquitous just before an election. Which begs the question: If there is universal agreement on this issue, why aren’t there more police around, not just for Croydon, but for all the boroughs? All sections of our society want more community policing: the elderly, local businesses and even young people.

The answer must be to do with spending priorities. For example, unlike other parties, Greens would choose not to spend £96 billion on renewing trident; £4.5 billion a year on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; or the estimated £5.3 billion on ID cards. Arguably, they do not make us safer. Moreover, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have made the world less safe.

Surely the money would be better spent on ensuring the borough has more police officers on the beat and invested in programmes which take families out of poverty.

Yours sincerely,

Shasha Khan

Croydon Green Party

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Tags croydon, greenparty