I found that you tend to find a lot of police in certain hotspots in London, like train stations and places like Elephant & Castle where there's a lot of things like stop and search (or there was when I lived nearby in Southwark) but everywhere else, I find pretty much no police at all, but I accept that's just my personal experience,
Interestingly, crime which can be dealt with via automation and online forms seems to generate lots of police interaction - report a stolen phone, and you'll have endless surveys, crime numbers, people calling to make sure you're ok, txts from victim support groups, txts asking how you rate your experience... - (it's just a work phone, that got lifted from my bag)
However, I also got attacked twice last year, one was a failed mugging the other was a violent confrontation which was captured on CCTV and lasted 10 minutes, not once have I heard back from the police on either issue, no crime number, no follow up - nothing, they took statements at the time - but that's it.
Not that the police calling me, or getting in touch will make any practical difference - but to me it paints a very obvious picture - the force is just so overstretched, it doesn't have the time to do proper police work, it goes from job to job at 100mph trying to stay afloat, rather than being a central pillar of community law and order.
Interestingly, crime which can be dealt with via automation and online forms seems to generate lots of police interaction - report a stolen phone, and you'll have endless surveys, crime numbers, people calling to make sure you're ok, txts from victim support groups, txts asking how you rate your experience... - (it's just a work phone, that got lifted from my bag)
However, I also got attacked twice last year, one was a failed mugging the other was a violent confrontation which was captured on CCTV and lasted 10 minutes, not once have I heard back from the police on either issue, no crime number, no follow up - nothing, they took statements at the time - but that's it.
Not that the police calling me, or getting in touch will make any practical difference - but to me it paints a very obvious picture - the force is just so overstretched, it doesn't have the time to do proper police work, it goes from job to job at 100mph trying to stay afloat, rather than being a central pillar of community law and order.