From experience I've seen changes in Policing in my local town, rarely now do we see beat officers, the local stations have all been closed, resources have been centred on higher risk locations. Upto 3 or 4 years ago we would have a helicopter circling around often late at night trying to track criminals down. That's all changed, now we have far more cameras in the park, around the town centre (removing the need for expensive helicopters who can only be in one place at a time). Street lighting has been improved, there is greater co-ordination thru community policing meetings dealing with issues of local residents. Developing Policing priorities and targeted Policing. maximising the efficiency of finite resources and addressing local concerns.
There again I live in a relatively quiet community, it still has some serious drug issues etc., but nothing compared to some inner city areas and their levels of violence etc . The approach to inner cities has to be very different, in the same way Blackpool just down the road has immense Policing issues created by social depravation, a weekend party stag and hen do destination with massive anti social behaviour after pub and club closing times, requiring heavy Police presence over the weekend. The Policing approach where I live probably wouldn't work as well in Blackpool, its a different series of problems and higher incidence of occurrence, so more officers have been based in Blackpool reducing resources locally. I could complain about the lack of evidence of policing locally because there is no-one pounding the beat, but that would be disingenuous, it's no less safe than when there were local Police stations open.
