To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment he has made of the level of resources required by Sussex Police to effectively tackle knife crime in Brighton and Hove; if he will provide the resources required; and if he will make a statement.
Answered on
5 November 2019
The Home Office continues to monitor crime levels and officer numbers. Many factors impact on crime levels. More reporting of ‘hidden’ crimes, recording improvements and some genuine increases in offending, have all contributed to recent increases in recorded crime.
The Government is committed to recruiting 20,000 additional police officers over the next three years. Sussex Police will be able to recruit 129 officers in the first tranche of up to 6,000 additional officers to be recruited across England and Wales by the end of March 2021.
The Government is also investing £100 million through the Serious Violence Fund. £63.4 million of this funding has been allocated to support an immediate surge in police operational activity. We have distributed this across the 18 police force areas experiencing the highest volumes of knife crime, of which Sussex Police is one. Using a tiered approach based on the rate of hospital admissions for injury with a sharp object, an assessment was made to determine the funding allocations required for each force.
Sussex Police have been allocated £1.34m for surge operational activity, alongside £880,000 for Violence Reduction Units (VRUs) which will serve local communities by acting as central hubs for multi-agency collaboration that will seek to address the root causes of serious violence and deliver sustainable and locally informed solutions.