Still plodding along? The police response to the changing profile of crime in England and Wales

Introduction

The Office of National Statistics (ONS) 2016 Survey of Crime in England and Wales highlighted new challenges confronting the police in the changing criminal environment within which they have to operate, and that now occurs most frequently ‘online’ and to which this article is immediately directed. The report highlighted a significant change in our understanding of the profile of crime and victimization in England and Wales. For the first time, the full impact of fraud and cybercrime has been fully estimated (ONS, 2016). The 2016 survey showed that that an estimated 5.8 million cases of fraud and cybercrime were committed in the previous year, pushing up the overall crime figures to more than 12 million offences (ONS, 2016). Although there may have been 5.8 million such crimes in previous years, we did not know about them. Now we do, and the police and other law enforcement agencies need to react to this changed understanding of the business demand on their services.

Although (traditional) volume crime (burglary, robbery, theft, etc.) has continued to fall, this has been more than matched by the increased rate of victimization involving online fraud and cybercrime. This is far greater than had been recognized previously (Ford, 2016). It appears that UK residents are now 20 times more likely to be a victim of fraud than robbery, and 10 times more likely to experience fraud than theft from the person. In what appears to be an ineluctable expansion in the sale and use of new technology, a new volume crime profile has replaced that with which the police have traditionally wrestled. As argued by the deputy head of the ONS in relation to the nature and size of the problem, in putting the scale of the threat from these offences into context, estimates of the number of fraud and computer incidents are similar in magnitude to the combined total of all other offences measured by the survey (Ford, 2016).

Characteristics identifiable within this new crime profile may also have potentially significant consequences for the police service because the pattern of current victimization appears to reverse established assumptions surrounding the victims of crime. This is because fraud and cybercrime can now make residents in rural areas more vulnerable than urban city dwellers, while in terms of age group, the middle aged are more likely to be victims than any other group. Those in managerial and professional positions are now also at far greater risk of victimization, than either manual workers or the unemployed (ONS, 2016).

This development represents an abrupt change from earlier patterns of victimization. To the extent that the pattern of victimization has changed in terms of social class, this can also be expected to generate new demands on the police service. Traditionally, members of the middle class as users of public services have proved to be much more vociferous in their demands for service than other social groups (Costa-Font and Zigante, 2016).

For these reasons, it is evident that the changing profile of crime must impact on the police service. As a result, how the service responds to new and increasing demands could be seen as the single most critical problem confronting the police organization. How it responds and the extent to which it is able to do so under its current configuration constitute an immediate challenge. Yet, in this context, police organizational culture cannot be ignored. Traditionally, it has acted as a strong buffer to change; however, in its current structure, the police service appears unlikely to provide the degree of employment flexibility to respond to the new demands placed upon it by online crime.

Policing past and policing futures

The ONS 2016 Crime Survey generated considerable publicity, but it is also evident that fraud has an established contemporary history. It is the case that, over the past decade, the nature and size of the problem have been recorded regularly. From at least the 1980s, the growing threat of fraud has been the subject of debate within the public sector, most notably within local government, but also within the National Health Service where fraud investigation has been undertaken for many years (Button et al., 2015).

It is apparent that the fraud threat has been long recognized by many public authorities, although this does not appear to have extended to the police service. In a critical analysis of the police response to fraud, researchers discovered that over the past 20 years, studies had identified a significant decline in specialist police resources dedicated to investigating fraud or economic crime. In the 1980s, police forces supported 588 fraud squad officers, but by 2006, this number had fallen to an estimated 416 police officers (Button et al., 2015).

Interestingly, the decrease in the number of fraud squad officers occurred during a period of substantial increases in police numbers (Berman, 2012). Most recent research data collected on the numbers of police officers specializing in fraud indicates that, when aggregated nationally, there were 624.3 officers in 2014, represented approximately 0.27% of all police personnel (Button et al., 2015).

Given the acknowledged fact that fraud and cybercrime have assumed an increasing salience over past decades, this might seem surprising. Indeed, the 2015 ONS survey highlighted the size of the problem when it estimated that more than 5 million incidents of fraud had occurred in England and Wales during 2015 (BBC News, 2016a).

Explanations for the low investment in fraud investigation undertaken by police forces were provided within the Fraud Review Team Final Report of 2006. The report reinforced an earlier perception that there was a lack of interest in fraud within the police and that all too often, fraud appeared to be at the bottom of police priorities (Fraud Review Team, 2006). In the review, one chief officer argued that the investigation of fraud was extremely expensive in terms of hours spent obtaining statements and preparing a prosecution case, and that his strategy (under the Crime and Disorder Act) ‘identified priority areas and police resources were then directed to those priority areas. Fraud was not one of them’ (Fraud Review Team, 2006, quoted in Button et al., 2015).

A perception that fraud constituted an element of ‘victimless’ crime may have contributed to a downplaying of its importance and its impact on victims. In addition, fraud did not form part of the official crime survey until 2015, and it was not seen as a priority by either the police or politicians. In terms of performance management and performance measurement, which dominated policing activity over three decades, fraud was never identified as a target or measurable offence.

Current status of online crime within the police service

The low priority accorded fraud and computer crime may have explained the Metropolitan Police Commissioners’ interesting response to a demand that the police should do more in response to ‘online fraud’. A demand that banks should refund losses from fraudulent activity arising from online banking led to the Commissioner to place the blame on bank account holders, the victims. He argued that the system rewarded ‘bad behaviour’ among the public for being lax about internet security. He suggested that the banks should consider no longer refunding some online fraud victims who had, he argued, brought the problem on themselves (Peachey, 2016).

The consumer group Which? argued, however, that the burden of protection should lie with the banks. They had after all, encouraged online banking to cut costs. A Which? executive subsequently argued that when they investigated the matter earlier they found all too often that banks dragged their feet when dealing with fraud. Which? felt that the priority should be for banks to protect their customers better, rather than trying to shift blame onto the victims of fraud (Peachey, 2016).

Other critics of the commissioner asked if either the banks or the police could protect society from this type of crime and questioned whether the police had the competence to deal with the ever-increasing sophistication of this type of fraud (Peachey, 2016).

The police response only reflected a view that white-collar crime was a ‘second level priority’ and one that could make potentially great demands on police resources at a time when budgets were being cut and sustaining ‘visible policing’ was proving ever more problematic. This position has been difficult to sustain in face of the fast-changing nature of offending.

As argued by the director of the National Crime Agency (NCA), the criminal environment has undergone a sea-change in recent decades. This transformation will accelerate as technologies become more sophisticated and public access to them increases. As the director general argued, the chances of being a victim of a burglary, a vehicle crime or a street robbery are all much lower than ever before. Those were crimes that effectively happened on the street and could be dealt with by a visible police response. There was now a much greater likelihood of becoming a victim within your own home, by way of your own computer, and developments in technology have enabled offenders to behave in different ways; whether it is cybercrime, fraud, money laundering or the explosion of child sexual exploitation, there has been a fundamental change in offending (Sylvester and Thomson, 2016).

The re-assessment of the changing profile of crime has been recognized by Sir Tom Winsor, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary. He suggested that ‘bobbies on the beat’ were increasingly ‘old fashioned’ in an internet age. Winsor (2011) argued that the probabilities of a police officer actually walking past a burglary in progress were pretty low and that a great deal of crime no longer occurred on the streets. Perpetrators also feel safer because they now sit in front of a computer rather than ‘breaking in somewhere’ (Sylvester and Thomson, 2016).

The view of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary as to the new configuration of criminal activity has been reflected elsewhere. One commentator noted how crime has ‘moved on’ away from ‘volume offences’ to cybercrime, which is now seen as both much safer to commit and much more lucrative ‘than its real world counterpart’ (Naughton, 2015). As argued previously, however, the police response has raised concern, not least among officers who believe that cybercrime has been at alarming levels for some time and none of whom appear confident that the law enforcement system is able to deal with it. These views are corroborated by the experiences of the 5% of UK internet users who have been the victims of various types of cybercrime – identity theft, phishing scams, card fraud and malware attacks. They have reported a variety of responses – almost none of them helpful – from the local police to whom they turn for help (Naughton, 2015).

Explanations for this negative response include bureaucratic inertia, lack of technical knowledge and a shortage of resources, which means that cybercrime receives lower priority than other more urgent responsibilities (Naughton, 2015).

The spiralling problem of fraud and cybercrime, and the response by local police forces to it have become all the more remarkable as the level and extent of recorded victimization have increased. As the 2016 ONS figures on the level of online shopping scams, virus attacks, theft of bank details and other online offences demonstrate, the true scale of this type of victimization is much higher than that identified within the initial ONS estimate in 2015, and which put the annual figure at 3.8 million offences or 40% of all crimes (Travis, 2016).

In 2016, the ONS concluded that the total stood at 5.8 million offences and consisted of 3.8 million fraud offences, including 2.5 million incidents of bank and credit card fraud, and 2 million computer misuse offences, which included 1.4 million virus attacks. It was argued that the remaining 600,000 estimated offences related to unauthorized access (hacking) into personal information, social media or other online accounts (Travis, 2016).

Fraud and cybercrime: responding to victimization

Earlier perceptions surrounding ‘white-collar crime’ often identified this type of criminal activity as ‘victimless’. However, current trends suggest that this classification has long since ceased to have any ready application (Loeb, 2016). In the UK, the official response to the growing crisis in fraud and cyber victimization has proved to be less than successful. While government extolled the apparent success in reducing volume acquisitive crime, insufficient attention was directed to the problem of fraud, even though academic research clearly highlighted the extent of the problem (City of London Corporation, 2015). As recent ONS data demonstrated, the decline in recorded crime has been matched by a disturbing rise in fraud and cybercrime. This development may also reflect a deeper reality; that cybercrime is both much safer and more lucrative than its real-world counterpart.

The police response has, however, suggested an indifference to the problem of ‘online crime’, which does not conform to traditional patterns of crime and victimization. This was noted in a 2015 HMIC report that revealed the failure of police forces to adequately appreciate the changing patterns of victimization. Commenting that modern technology was an integral part of people’s lives and that the police service must respond accordingly, HMIC questioned police perceptions of online victimization (HMIC, 2015a: para 1.13). HMIC discovered that the police were frequently ‘dismissive’ of victims of online crime and often failed to act in response to victim complaints. This appeared to reflect an assessment among police that online offences were ‘just kids on Facebook’ and that there was little the police could do in response. HMIC stressed that:

The essential point to remember is that the gravity of the offence and its impact on the victim is not lessened because it is carried out ‘online’ and that attitudes demonstrated by police officers to these offences showed a ‘worrying lack of understanding both of the threat and risk to the victim and as a consequence, a failure positively to support them (Barrett, 2015).

No further ‘action fraud’

In 2008, the National Fraud Authority was established to respond to cases of fraud and was tasked with working with Victim Support in providing support for victims of fraud. Although closed in 2014, one element of the National Fraud Authority’s work remained, Action Fraud, to which victims of fraud could make contact to report their case. Information about the offence was thereafter forwarded by Action Fraud to the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau run by the City of London Police.

Action Fraud also ended the ability of victims to report fraud by calling an emergency police number or by visiting a police station. Instead, victims had to give details online or telephone a call centre initially run by the private company Broadcasting Support Services. This was subsequently replaced by a second private sector American company Concentrix (Owen, 2015).

Interestingly, one feature of Action Fraud’s work has been the failure to provide any effective support to victims of fraud. In 2013, a complaint from police and crime commissioners raised concerns about the way in which Action Fraud did not give victims support, refused to update them on any progress with their case, and failed to pass on to the police more than half the cases received by them (Beckforth, 2013). Where victims of fraud did report the offence to the police, they automatically referred the case to Action Fraud or requested that victims do so themselves. This was largely because the police did not have the resources or the expertise to solve online crime (Beckforth, 2013).

Victims’ experience of the support offered by Action Fraud has generally proved entirely unsatisfactory. Where victims report crime to the police, they in turn refer the case to Action Fraud usually by way of an Action Fraud business card. Thereafter, victims are unlikely to hear much more about their case unless the sum of money lost meets criteria judged appropriate for subsequent investigation. Very few cases reach these criteria and, in the absence of action on the part of either the police or Action Fraud, many victims report that they ‘feel let down’, as perhaps they might, if only because currently ‘most online crime is now never reported, investigated or solved’ (Beckforth, 2013).

If Action Fraud has a primary responsibility to record online and other fraud, it is clear that victims’ expectations of its role go beyond any recognition of this function. Yet victims’ experiences of interaction with this organization lead them to question how seriously their victimization is taken by public authorities. Evidence of this has been recorded elsewhere and suggests that in the absence of any police intervention, victims of fraud appear to be dependent on the void that currently characterizes national fraud investigation undertaken, since the demise in 2014 of the National Fraud Authority, by the combined, if not coordinated, efforts of the NCA, Home Office and City of London Police.

Identifying challenges to contemporary police service delivery

The fast-changing nature of criminal activity suggests that significant re-engineering of the police service may be needed if it is to respond effectively to the growth in online crime. Here, the publication of an influential report by HMIC on police efficiency may provide a useful basis for approaching what could prove to be a painful but necessary internal reorganization of police services.

In a 2015 report, HMIC (2015b) identified a number of current limitations within police forces that curtail their ability to plan for future demand and redirect resources in response to this. In developing a new and important distinction between police ‘capacity’ and ‘capability’, HMIC adopted a novel and challenging approach to evaluating effectiveness within police forces.

HMIC noted that the police service needed to improve its understanding of the demand for its services, particularly future demand, along with the capability of its workforce. Although most forces understood current demand for their service, ‘there was much further to go in their assessing demand from under-reported, hidden crimes or newer crime types such as cybercrime’ (HMIC, 2015b: 6). The report commented critically on the fact that most forces had a weak understanding of future demand. They reacted to current demand, but few had effective assessments of how demand was likely to change (HMIC, 2015b: 7).

This negative evaluation of police engagement with change was linked by HMIC to the changing profile of crime. In a highly prescient summary of future challenges, HMIC commented that:

Even if measured crime does continue to fall, the police service will face new and emerging crime types, increasingly sophisticated criminals, and increasing expectations from the public about the quality of service they receive (2015b: 8).

The need to plan for future and changing demand appears to have entirely eluded most police forces. They were, HMIC discovered, primarily engaged in seeking to protect existing staff levels along with historically well-established functions. HMIC found that forces appeared to be driven by the need to cut spending. Almost all forces were planning for the future by working out the maximum size of the workforce they could afford and creating an operating model to fit – rather than designing the force to meet likely future demand at a cost they could afford. This essentially static approach to planning meant continuing to police with a pool of available officers. It also meant being unprepared for future changes in the nature and size of demand, while also failing to improve capability.

Current police commitment to capacity over capability

As a means of providing a universal yardstick of effective future resource management, HMIC have placed great emphasis on the need for forces to distinguish between capacity and capability in identifying police strengths and weaknesses. HMIC discovered that police forces were able to identify police capacity (numbers, costs, ranks of officers and police staff). Unfortunately, this strength did not to extend to police capability (workforce skills).

Although all forces understand their capacity in knowing the numbers ranks and costs of officers, even here, forces had not developed a way of defining the number of officers they might need to police a specified level of demand to a ‘specified standard of service’ (HMIC, 2015b: 33). This lack of analysis may merely reflect the nature of incremental growth to which in the past police establishment was subject. Also, there was never any real need for managers to match resource inputs to any defined outputs.

More worrying was the discovery that police forces almost universally were unable to provide an effective breakdown of their own workforce capability in understanding ‘what their people can do and what skills they have and need to have’. The evident failure by police to develop any appropriate capability and force-wide capability profile was highlighted in the HMIC report. Forces were also unable to describe accurately the current strengths or weaknesses in their skills, either across the whole workforce or by rank or grade (HMIC, 2015b: 33).

This interesting black hole in organizational self-evaluation could be explained in different ways. First, as HMIC commented, there was no sense that forces had developed a centre of excellence on change management because most change programmes were led by either senior officers or external consultants (HMIC, 2015b: 23). Second, in response to the 2010 Comprehensive Spending Review, most forces moved to reduce spending rather than seeking efficiency savings through transforming how they operated. Most forces reduced their capacity without appreciating the effect of doing so on their capability.

Cost-cutting was usually undertaken by eliminating support and other staff to protect the numbers of police officers, who ‘provided better value for money’ (HMIC, 2015b: 31). This was compounded by the revelation that in the race to cut costs, training and development departments had been among the first areas to be reduced significantly ‘to save money’ (HMIC, 2015b: 33).

It was not, therefore, a matter of great surprise that most police forces showed a commitment to capacity over capability. Yet there may have been additional factors that were, in retrospect, highly relevant to this outcome. These were reflected in which staff were or were not confronted with reductions in staffing levels.

Limitations to police force re-engineering and organizational change

The police service has undertaken change management but this has been limited in both application and extent. The 2002 Police Reform Act introduced police community support officers (PCSOs) who were given limited powers to help extend visible policing within street patrol and local neighbourhood policing strategies. Professionally derided early on by the Police Federation as representing little more than ‘plastic policemen’, the police organizational culture proved particularly unamenable to what might be seen as a limited initiative designed to increase overall police capacity.

Yet the response of most police forces to the 2010 Spending Review proved to be almost uniform because the 20% cuts were focused directly at PCSO numbers within police forces. Thus, within the Metropolitan Police Service, there was a 49% decrease in PCSO numbers and elsewhere reductions of over one-third in PCSO numbers were undertaken (UNISON, 2013, 2016). One immediate consequence of this was a significant impact on neighbourhood policing as PCSO numbers fell and with over 60% of staff reporting cuts in staff or resources (UNISON, 2016).

In response to additional planned cuts to police spending, further reductions in PCSO numbers were actively contemplated by most forces. In the Metropolitan Police Service, this took the form of the complete removal of all PCSOs. A very similar response was recorded within Devon and Cornwall Constabulary, where chief officers planned the removal of all non-sworn officers in response to budget cuts.

It was apparent that these decisions were made to protect capacity; very little thought was given to capability. Within the Metropolitan Police Service it was discovered that operational police were very largely dependent on intelligence coming from PCSOs and which was provided by these officers on a ‘daily basis’. Plans to eliminate PCSOs in London would, therefore, seriously undermine the intelligence platform of the entire Metropolitan Police Service (Loveday and Smith, 2015). The reduction in support staff and cuts, either implemented or contemplated at this time, raised questions about the motivation of senior managers prepared to contemplate these outcomes.

Local neighbourhood policing began to break down as PCSO numbers dwindled and sworn officers were called to fill back-office jobs previously undertaken by civilian staff (UNISON, 2013). One chief officer referred to the increasing ‘officerization’ of police forces as sworn officers moved back from front-line duties and where workforce modernization had ‘gone into reverse’ (Loveday, 2015). As noted in their attempt to protect capacity, chief officers appeared to have undermined force capability. This outcome was precisely the opposite of that which might have been expected within HMIC.

Police organizational culture as a barrier to reform

It has also become apparent that the implementation of change programmes within the police service may be confronted by a strong organizational culture. Organizational cultures impinge on any re-engineering strategy and also often exercise a highly significant influence on what can be achieved.

Recent examples of cultural resistance to internal change are of such significance that they raise questions about how the police organization begins to respond to the changing profile of crime. Recently, the introduction of direct entry into the police service at high and intermediate level ranks has been made to improve calibre and widen officer recruitment (Smith, 2016a). This programme serves as a useful indicator of the problems that may confront those planning change management in the police service.

This initiative provided opportunities for senior managers outside the service to apply for direct entry at senior rank. The response proved to be overwhelming with some 800 applications being received initially (College of Policing, 2015, cited in Smith, 2016b). Yet as Smith demonstrated, the number of applicants was reduced ultimately to just eight who embarked on the initial training programme (Smith, 2016b). This was a very high attrition rate and may have reflected the standards set for the applicants by successive interview boards. Applicants were interviewed for potential chief officer roles rather than for superintendent rank, which only increased the attrition rate (Beckley quoted in Smith, 2016a).

Interaction with serving senior officers may also have raised doubts about their future role within the police service (Smith, 2016b). This was despite the fact that within the initial selection, evidence of bias towards applicants who both demonstrated greater knowledge of the police service (and of its culture) and had contact with police personnel, was clearly identified (Stubbs, 2016). This suggested that a process of self-selection was undertaken within the initial sifting process, one that appears to apply, moreover, across the entire police selection process (Stubbs, 2016). As currently constituted, therefore, future selection of police personnel may not be best served by established mechanisms. These too may benefit from significant re-engineering.

The shape of things to come

Some indication of the nature and extent of change that the police service of the future will need to contemplate has arisen from recent experience within the NCA. Established to deal with national, serious and organized crime, it was intended that the NCA would originally recruit personnel form existing operational detective officers within the police service.

Yet as the NCA role expanded, it became evident that these officers were increasingly redundant as the NCA was confronted by ever more complex investigations. In response to the Chair’s reference to the high turnover of staff within the NCA, its Director General stated, in oral evidence to the Home Affairs Committee, that:

The reason that we have needed people to leave – who are mostly exceptionally good people – is that we had too many senior people who were probably of my generation in law enforcement – and law enforcement and crime have changed. We need more crime fighters who are digitally hugely competent, more people who can write code and more people who are expert in how banks operate – so we need different skills (Home Affairs Committee Oral Evidence, 2015: Q39p9).

For the NCA, recruiting ‘highly qualified code writers and engineers’ is not seen as problematic. However, retaining them in the face of competition from the private sector proved increasingly difficult. As a result, it was important to establish for direct entrants ‘careers based on the intellectual and professional challenge of tackling the most difficult cyber criminals and people who would exploit children’ while also ‘keeping the public safe’ (Home Affairs Committee Oral Evidence, 2015: Q66p16).

The need for police forces to respond to the avalanche of fraud and cybercrime has been evidenced by the current president of the Superintendents’ Association. He has argued that the primary feature for change to enable the police service to begin to respond to the new crime profile centres on ‘flexibility’ in terms of recruitment and of those recruited (Thomas, 2016: 1). Such is the nature of the fraud and cybercrime problem that the police needs, he argues, to consider the skills mix of its people to ensure that it can deal effectively with the developing threat. Thomas has stated that the traditional skills that served policing well through successive generations were not the only ones required in the future, and that future recruitment could target people in their late teens or early 20s as a means of tackling fraud investigation (Thomas, 2016).

Thomas suggested that police forces may need to recruit cybercrime and financial experts from outside policing, whose skills could be utilized immediately, rather than being reliant on the traditional model of training recruits to be a police officer first and then going on to train them to be experts in cybercrime, money laundering or fraud. Much more emphasis might also be placed on private sector capabilities, where these could be bought in by the police service (Thomas, 2016).

As a move to direct entry, this might be challenged within the police organizational culture. Yet it will be seen as a significant advance on the recruitment of local ‘volunteers’ a proposal endorsed by the then Home Secretary, Theresa May. It was envisaged that these ‘volunteers’ would be able to exercise police powers without any measurable degree of accountability. This appeared a simple solution to a complex problem, but in reality would give the volunteer significant ‘powers over their neighbours and others in the community’ (Weinfass, 2016).

If implemented this could create potentially highly dangerous hostages to fortune. Yet as a response to a belated recognition of the threat of fraud cybercrime it was entirely symptomatic of the limited horizons that currently characterize the official response to the problem. Although a Home Office Joint Fraud Taskforce and Police Reform and Transformation Board have been created, it is difficult to ascertain their impact on what is a fast-moving and increasingly global crime threat (Button and Cross, 2016). Here, establishing working parties or official committees although a traditional response to newly identified problems, might not provide the degree of reassurance for which members of the public (and therefore potential victims of crime) might expect to see.

Conclusion

This article provides an assessment of the impact of the new profile of fraud and cybercrime and the police response to it. Many critical issues remain to be addressed. These include whether the police service can to begin to deal effectively with the problem of fraud and cybercrime when they are also confronted with multiple pressures ranging from the threat of terrorist attack through to child sexual exploitation and the growing problem of the mentally challenged in the community (Muir, 2016). All these weigh heavily on both police resources and personnel.

Recent initiatives undertaken by a number of police forces in response to the growing crisis of fraud and cybercrime cannot be overlooked. Despite critical publicity directed at the commissioner, the Metropolitan Police Service has taken a major step forward with Operation Falcon. Established in 2015, the Metropolitan Police Cyber Crime Unit aims to tackle the most serious incidents of cybercrime. It works in close partnership with the NCA and seeks to proactively target cybercriminals and fraudsters by ‘focusing on stemming the harm caused by the most prolific Organized Crime Groups’ (Operation Falcon website 2016).

Yet the work of the Metropolitan Police Cyber Crime Unit will only extend to the most serious cases. This must mean that most fraud and cybercrime offences will not be investigated. Here, a further question arises. Given the nature and extent of the problem, can the police service realistically be expected to deal with this changing crime profile. This could extend to a recent initiative taken by the City of London police where, in future, the police will hire private law firms to target cybercriminals and fraudsters to deal more effectively with fraud. This is estimated to cost £193 billion a year and is now claimed to be ‘overwhelming the police and criminal justice system’ (Dodd, 2016).

Academic commentators have argued in response for the creation of a National Fraud Authority to which these offences could be channelled (Button et al., 2015). This solution could marginalize the police service from what is now a major pattern of criminal activity, and put the police in a secondary role when also confronted by high public expectation along with increasing rates of victimization. Arguably, the police service cannot opt out of responding to what is now serious threat to public wellbeing.

How the police service responds to these challenges remains a matter of speculation. Yet the same problem has been replicated within the private sector. Ironically, in response to increasing cybersecurity concerns, one major auditing company, PwC, has recently made the decision to employ more than 1,000 technical specialists, including 200 graduates to address the problem. Yet, for the police service, there must be a suspicion that the organizational culture might stall engagement with a highly critical threat. The need for leadership to implement a strategy to deal with the problem of the new crime profile in England and Wales is well established; it can also be seen as the biggest challenge yet to confront the police service of England and Wales.