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WickedsDesire -> Are there 20,000 fewer police? (5/2/2017 11:08:13 PM)
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Reality Check: Are there 20,000 fewer police?
2 May 2017
From the section UK Politics
The claim: Police numbers have fallen by 20,000 since 2010.
Reality Check verdict: Labour's figures are about right. Latest statistics show that police officer numbers in England and Wales have fallen by 19,000 since 2010.
Shadow home secretary Diane Abbott said 20,000 police officers in England and Wales had been lost from the force since 2010.
Between September 2010 and September 2016, police numbers in England and Wales fell by 18,991, or 13%, according to the Home Office.
Police numbers rose gradually from the 1980s, with a sharp rise from around 2000. Since around 2010, however, they have been falling significantly.
The figures Ms Abbott points to are for England and Wales only, because policing in Scotland and Northern Ireland is devolved.
In Scotland, police numbers have risen more or less continuously since 1985, while in Northern Ireland there has been a decrease since 2010, but not as sharp as the decrease seen in England and Wales.
Deep cuts
As of September 2016, there were 122,859 police officers working in England and Wales.
Up until 2010, spending on policing had been increasing for at least 15 years, rising most sharply between 2000 and 2010 when it went up by around 30%. But since then, spending has come back down significantly.
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