Victims of some of the most common criminal offences are expected to become "DIY detectives" and probe the crime themselves, a report into policing in England and Wales has found.
Victims of some high-volume offences are being asked by police to become "DIY detectives’ and investigate the crime themselves, a new report has found.
Some police forces in England and Wales have ‘almost given up’ sending officers to the scene of low-level crimes, and were instead using call-handlers to deal with the incidents.
The report, by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, claimed that call-handlers have been asking victims to carry out some investigations themselves in order to determine the likelihood of the crime being solved.
These "DIY investigations" are said to have included victims being asked to interview neighbours, gather fingerprints, look for CCTV footage and even check online marketplaces such as eBay to check if their property was being sold.
Inspector of Constabulary Roger Baker, who led the inspection, said: “HMIC finds this expectation that the victim should investigate his own crime both surprising and a matter of material concern.
“The police have been given powers and resources to investigate crime by the public, and there should be no expectation on the part of the police that an inversion of that responsibility is acceptable.”
Mr Baker added: “They're the cops and we expect the cops to catch people and my proposition to you is unless you've got the powers of Mystic Meg or something like that, [without you] turning up and using your skills, it's going to be mightily difficult to bring people to justice."
The report found that 37 out of 43 forces in England and Wales were using call-handlers to assess whether an officer should be sent to a crime scene - but warned that in some instances they were unable to properly determine the seriousness of the situation.
Mr Baker said: “It’s more a mindset, that we no longer deal with these things.
“And effectively what’s happened is a number of crimes are on the verge of being decriminalised.
“So it’s not the fault of the individual staff, it’s a mindset thing that’s crept in to policing to say ‘we’ve almost given up’.”
