The latest report from Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary gives a cautiously optimistic assessment that although police forces are reducing officer and staff levels to cope with budget cuts, the frontline is being protected and "fundamentally the operating model of British policing is unaltered". This is good news, but inevitably in the debate around budget cuts and the police response to the August riots, the claim is repeatedly made that fewer police will inevitably mean a rise in crime in the years ahead. However, this is very simplistic, and a lot of evidence suggests that even with fewer officers, there are tested ways of deploying cops to keep crime down.

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