Graphs at a glance: Government increases the percentage of female police officers! By sacking male officers faster than they sack female officers!!

Question: How do you INCREASE the percentage of women in the police force while DECREASING the number of women in the police force?

Answer: You decrease the number of policeMEN faster than you decrease the number of policeWOMEN.

For example, if you have 20 women and 80 men, then 20% are women (20 out of a total 100 people). If you reduce the number of men such that you have 20 women and 20 men the percentage of women goes up to 50% (20 out of 40 people).

The House of Commons Library,  which provides impartial research for MPs, produced their "Social Indicators" report in September 2014. This report shows:

• Total police numbers fell by 15,825 between 2010 and 2014

Of these officer cuts:

• 1,335 were female
• 14,490 were male

As a result the percentage of women officers rose from 26% in 2010 to 28% in 2014. 

Were these cuts made because we Britons are so much better behaved than we used to be, and therefore need less policing? The same ONS Social Indicators report shows that this isn't the case, with the prison population growing rapidly for two decades:

Perhaps the Home Secretary will say "As we put more crooks in jail there are obviously fewer left outside jail. So we need fewer cops!". So has the government increased the number of prisons and prison officers to keep the extra crooks in jail? A report by the Prisons Reform Trust states:

“At the end of March 2014, 77 of the 119 prisons in England and Wales were overcrowded.

The ratio of prison officers to prisoners in 2000 was 1:2.9, by the end of September 2013 this had increased to 4.8 prisoners for each prison officer

England and Wales have an imprisonment rate of 149 per 100,000 of the population. Scotland has a rate of 146 per 100,000, Northern Ireland and France have rates of 100 per 100,000, and Germany has 77 per 100,000."

Of course the Home Secretary could put the blame for prisons on the Justice Secretary. After all the accident prone Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has a dismal record of cocking up cuts, outsourcing and privatisations. 

However Her Majesty's Inspector of Constabularies' (HMIC) reported in September 2014 that the Home Office is absconding from the scenes of crimes all over the country. When this report came out the BBC stated that victims were "asked to investigate crime themselves". Graphs from the HMIC "Core Business" report show this lamentable response of police forces across England & Wales:

1) In Warwickshire police do not turn up to investigate two thirds of burglaries:

2) In England & Wales Police won't turn up to investigate a quarter of car thefts:

3) In England & Wales police won't turn up to investigate theft from a car in almost 4 out of 10 incidents:
 
The "party of law and order" is evidently first and foremost the "party of cutting taxes and spending". To be fair to the Home Office this obsession infects all government departments. Parliament's Public Accounts Committee reported in September 2014 about cuts to the Army by the Ministry of Defence:

"The Department did not test feasibility, or adequately consult the Army, before deciding to reduce the regular Army and increase the Army Reserve. We recognise that the decision to reduce the size of the Army was driven by the need to make financial savings in a time of austerity. However, it is remarkable that the Chief of the General Staff was not involved in all stages of the decision-making process given the magnitude and importance of the change required, and its impact on the service which he commands. We were also surprised to learn that the Department did not test the feasibility of recruiting and training the number of reserve soldiers it needs by 2019."

Perhaps we will soon see the Defence Secretary boasting about the increasing percentage of women soldiers and ethnic minorities?