News Desk

With the Metropolitan Police Service expected to push ahead with cuts of 20 per cent which will mean 1,000 police staff cut this year, 20,000 police jobs are likely to be lost in the next four years throughout England, leading the Police Federation to not rule out demonstrations by police officers.

The Police Federation has already responded angrily to the spectre of 20 per cent budget cuts, Simon Reed, Vice-Chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales, announced last week that:

"A reduction in police officer numbers as a result of a 20 percent cut to policing is highly likely to lead to increased crime rates and create a more dangerous society."

“This government cannot ignore the direct correlation between police officer numbers and the crime rate and must urgently reconsider the level of cuts the police service is facing over the next four years. The past 15 years saw a dramatic reduction in crime levels as police officer numbers were increased."

The cuts being proposed by the coalition government could see the end of "discretionary activities" like school patrols and local community beat officers.

At the House of Commons yesterday the chairman of the Police Federation would not rule police officers taking their protests to the streets and said:

"We don't rule anything out at all."

The Metropolitan Police has announced that around one thousand officers would be cut in London, with deeper cuts likely to take place after the 2012 Olympics with some estimates putting about job cuts in the Met at 5,000 jobs in the next four years.

The Police Federation have said that policing levels in England could fall to the levels seen in the "bad days of the 1970s" when comparisons were made on the assumption of how many officers per hundred thousand residents.  Current levels are estimated at 257 police officers per hundred thousand people, this is set to drop to 215 police officers per hundred thousand people.

photo credit: Met Police press office