England’s surge in violent crime revives talk of merging the police

HEADLINES ON NEWS-STANDS up and down England make for grisly reading. On November 16th a man was stabbed on the seafront of Weymouth, a quiet town on the south coast. Two days later a 16-year-old boy was knifed at a house in Birmingham. On the same day in London a gang of ten men stabbed four others sitting in a car on a residential street; one of the victims had been shot at less than 24 hours earlier.

Rising violence is leading to calls for the police to be given more money. Squeezed budgets have cut the number of officers by 15% since 2010. But the crime wave has also revived talk of police reform. England and Wales have 43 forces, from London’s mammoth Metropolitan Police (with 31,075 officers) to Warwickshire’s tiny constabulary (with 823). Some argue that encouraging them to merge, or at least work more closely together, could save money and improve their ability to tackle violence.