On 8 October 2019, the Home Secretary announced police recruitment targets for 2020-21.
- The rise in serious violence is deeply worrying that’s why the Prime Minister has made it his priority to make our streets safer – and we’ve already begun work to do just that.
- People want to see more officers in their neighbourhoods with the powers they need to protect the public and cut crime – that is why we are putting 20,000 extra police on our streets and announcing targets to recruit up to 6,000 by the end of next year.
- By empowering our police to do their jobs, we are keeping people safe and sending a clear message to criminals that they should feel terror at the thought of committing offences.
We are doing this by:
- Announcing the first tranche of the 20,000 additional police officers. The Home Secretary has confirmed the recruitment targets for every force in England and Wales, including up to 6,000 additional officers by the end of 2020-21. • Giving police forces the funding they need to recruit these extra officers. In the Spending Round, the Chancellor announced £750 million to support forces to recruit these 6,000 additional officers. This follows an immediate £45 million for this year to kick start recruitment.10 • Making it simpler for the police to use emergency stop and search powers to take knives off our streets. We have empowered more than 8,000 police officers to authorise enhanced stop and search powers, as part of our efforts to crack down on violent crime.11 • Conducting an urgent review of sentencing to ensure the public are properly protected from the most dangerous criminals. This review will ensure violent and sexual offenders are serving the right sentences and stopping the at the half way point of their sentence.
Q: Why are these targets only for 6,000 police?
We will deliver 20,000 new police officers over the next three years. We have started already, and have now set out force-level targets to recruit up to 6,000 new officers by the end of next year.
