‘The police can’t do it alone’: head of police watchdog on how to cut crime

The best way to stop people becoming criminals is to reduce poverty, target prevention strategies at young people and increase opportunity, his majesty’s chief inspector of constabulary has said.Sir Andy Cooke, who is preparing to leave his post and retire after 40 years in policing, told the Guardian that his decades of experience had taught him that crime was a “symptom of deeper societal failures”.Cooke, who began his career walking the beat in Liverpool, said a lot of crime could be reduced by prevention targeting young people and those coming out of jail.He said youth work had been decimated, noting that Liverpool, which once had 93 council-employed youth workers, now has just two.Politicians of all parties have for decades promised more officers as a way to fight crime, with little talk of prevention which struggles for funding despite showing it can divert people away from offending.Cooke said prevention services should be made a legal duty in the same way the authorities have to provide a police service. Photograph: Martin Godwin/The GuardianCooke said his experience in policing starting in the 1980s in a Liverpool blighted by unemployment and economic collapse taught him lessons he carries to this day. “I saw first-hand that crime was rarely just a policing problem. It was the symptom of deeper societal failures,” he said. “This has stayed with me throughout my entire career”.As the chief inspector of constabulary since 2022, Cooke is the home secretary’s key adviser on policing across England and Wales. Cooke said: “By the time someone commits a criminal offence, there have usually been multiple missed opportunities where another agency could have intervened to prevent their behaviour from escalating. I have seen this pattern throughout my career and our inspection work has consistently confirmed it.”He said inspection by his and other agencies into “how well local services work together to identify and support vulnerable children and young people” had “highlighted that resource pressures are making it harder to prioritise and tackle problems as soon as they emerge” – something the sector refers to as “early help”.He said prevention services such as early help should be made a legal duty in the same way the authorities have to provide a police service.Cooke said prevention suffered when budgets were cut, such as under austerity. “Early help aims to prevent problems from worsening, but it isn’t provided on a statutory basis. This puts it at risk of being cut when budgets tighten. Less severe needs may go unmet in favour of dealing with the most severe issues that carry a statutory obligation.“But that approach will only create more problems for the future. It could lead to preventable crimes being committed and the unnecessary criminalisation of many children and young people.“The cost of that vastly exceeds what early intervention would ever have cost.”Cooke added: “If the government is serious about safer streets, it must invest in the services that stop people from becoming offenders in the first place.“The police, for all their dedication and professionalism, can’t do it alone. And it must also remember that, particularly for young people in our most deprived neighbourhoods, the best crime prevention is reducing poverty and increasing opportunity.”Cooke also said there was a failure to rehabilitate people who were in prison. “Most are sat in a cell with no work done with them. The cycle keeps going on.”