Don’t let folks off if they steal food in desperation, minister tells police | Police

The policing minister, Package Malthouse, has disputed the suggestion of the chief inspector of constabulary, Andy Cooke, that the cost of living disaster will trigger a rise in crime, branding it “old-fashioned” thinking.

As inflation hit a 40-year high of 9%, Cooke said on Wednesday that officers should use their “discretion” when deciding whether to prosecute people who steal with a purpose to eat.

Showing on ITV’s Good Morning Britain on Thursday, Malthouse, a longtime ally of Boris Johnson, stated Cooke’s thinking was “old-fashioned”, including: “As a result of persons are challenged financially … that doesn’t essentially imply they’re going to show to crime.”

The chief inspector of constabulary is the pinnacle of the impartial assessor of police forces in England and Wales. Cooke, a former chief constable of Merseyside police, took over from Sir Tom Winsor within the position last month.

Malthouse has instructed officers to not let shoplifters off if they are stealing meals out of desperation during the cost of residing crisis.

He later told LBC, ministers would ensure police don't flip a blind eye to shoplifters stealing meals.

“In fact I wrote to chief constables only a year or so in the past saying they should not be ignoring those seemingly small crimes,” he mentioned.

Earlier, the minister told Instances Radio: “The broad rule is that justice should be blind and I hope and believe that's the principle that sits behind not simply the police however the operation of the courts as effectively.

“I have to challenge this connection between poverty and crime. What we’ve discovered in the past, and where there may be now rising proof, is that actually crime is a contributor to poverty. That should you take away the violence and the crime from folks’s lives they typically prosper more than they otherwise would.”

Cooke had earlier said: “The impression of poverty, and the affect of lack of opportunity for people, does result in an increase in crime. There’s no two methods about that.”

When requested how policing might avoid being seen as the arm of an uncaring state, he stated forces across England and Wales have been skilled in coping with the tensions and dynamics of their communities.

“What they’ve received to remember is what's the smartest thing for the community, and that individual, in the way in which they take care of those issues. And I definitely absolutely help cops using their discretion – and they need to use discretion more typically.”