UK Edition
Met Commissioner warns police must improve technology use to bring criminals to justice
The police must make better use of technology and data if they want to reduce crime and bring criminals to justice, Britain’s most senior police officer has said.
Cressida Dick, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police said detection rates for some offences were “woefully low” and despite the fact crime was going up the courts were emptying rather than filling.
Ms Dick said when the police investigated the most serious crimes they were very good at making use of technology and data, but it was important the same skills and resources were put to use effectively in other areas of their work.
Delivering the Police Foundation’s annual John Harris Memorial Lecture, she said as well as creating problems for the police to overcome, the digital revolution also offered vast opportunities for investigating crime.
She said: “It seems to me looking forward, that a very large proportion of crimes that occur could be prevented or at least successful investigated in the reasonably near future by the use of data that is already theoretically available and by technology that is already developed.
“By applying lots of resources and clever skilled people, and making the most of the data we legitimately have now, we solve almost 90 per cent homocides in London. We identified the two attackers in Salisbury.
“But overall police detection rates nationally are low, woefully low I would say in some instances and the courts are emptying not filling.”
She said while there was no magic wand for solving the problem it was important the police continued to invest in the latest technology and worked hard to recruit the highly skilled people needed to operate it.
But she admitted that recruiting specialist IT experts was difficult because the police were “fishing in a pool that so many people are fishing in”.
Ms Dick said there were some great innovations happening across the service, such as mobile fingerprint technology and a system that allowed officers to conduct rapid chemical analysis of drugs.
But she said criminals were also extremely proficient in the use of new technology so the police needed to ensure they were not lagging behind.