SWATHES of crime are to go uninvestigated to save money.

Sussex Police is to investigate fewer crimes in order to cope with a reduction in officer numbers and budget cuts.

Officers and staff will decide whether a crime is worth investigating based on a tougher judgement of the harm it has caused and the likelihood it will be solved.

They expect the new process will reduce the current 68 per cent of reported crimes that are fully investigated - but could not say by how much.

It comes as the force is having to make budget cuts of more than £50 million by 2020, cutting up to 1,000 officers and staff.

Critics have raised the alarm about the impact on victims, on crime reporting, and say the policy has not been scrutinised.

Yesterday the force said it was "unrealistic" to expect it could investigate every crime.

But Assistant Chief Constable Laurence Taylor insisted the new process was designed to be an improvement.

He said: "Evidence collected from other police forces has shown that forces which investigate fewer crimes, solve more and get better outcomes for victims because they focus on the right things."

The force is training officers and staff on a so-called "investigations framework" which asks them to look at the circumstances of the crime, the risks, what the victim wants and who the suspect is before deciding whether to investigate further.

It is likely to mean that more crimes such as criminal damage will be filed without further investigation if there are no leads or that catching someone is not deemed worthwhile.

Matt Webb, chairman of the Sussex Police Federation, said it could free officers' time to focus on certain crimes, but added: "The bottom line is we won't be investigating all crime - even some crime that could be solved.

"As we said in our campaign last year, cuts have consequences. We have taken such a huge hit to our budget and had to lose so many officers.

"It's a wholesale change from what the communities of Sussex expected and received from their officers.

"There is not a police officer in Sussex that wants to file a crime that we know we can detect."

Michael Jones, a member of the Sussex Police and Crime Panel, said: "It's the thin end of the wedge. It's unacceptable. People just won't bother to report crime because the police won't take them seriously."

He added he was concerned the decision had not been presented to the Police and Crime Panel and he planned to see whether it could be brought in for more scrutiny now.

Mr Taylor stressed they would not be ruling out investigating any particular crime type.

FORCE: IT’S ‘MODERNISING’ THE WAY WE WORK

SUSSEX Police’s statement that they plan to cut the number of crimes they can investigate is the latest in a series of announcements about changes to save money.

Two years ago we learned up to 1,000 officers and staff were to be axed due to Government budget cuts.

Huge reductions to PCSOs followed and last month the force opened recruitment of volunteers for key roles such as driving police cars.

And now taxpayers are told they cannot expect their crime will be investigated but instead each will be put to the test to discover if it is worth officers’ increasingly pushed time.

Assistant Chief Constable Laurence Taylor downplayed the policy, saying the force already did not investigate everything, in particular if it cannot see any lines of enquiry, no forensics or CCTV.

Brighton and Hove divisional commander Nev Kemp, in an interview with The Argus earlier this month, said he thought it was the “fairest and best way” to investigate given the demands on resources.

He said: “If it is criminal damage to a fence and there’s no lines of enquiry then we won’t waste time on that, again, if a vehicle has been broken into and there is no obvious line of enquiry.

“But if a vehicle has been stolen and that is the only means of transport for a family and it has a massive impact on them we will try and do more in relation to that crime as we recognise that leaves that family vulnerable. So it does vary.”

But for many in the community, police deciding to investigate fewer crimes, announced yesterday under the heading “Modernising the way we investigate crime”, is a worrying step too far.

Councillor Peter Atkinson, for North Portslade, said he was concerned people were beginning to feel there was no point reporting crime at all, against a backdrop of fewer PCSOs on the streets.

Mr Taylor stressed police still wanted people to report each and every crime, to help them build up intelligence and join the dots – even if fewer are investigated.

Michael Jones, Labour’s candidate in the latest Police and Crime Commissioner election, criticised the lack of consultation on the change, drawing a promise from Police and Crime Commissioner Katy Bourne that she would be “scrutinising this new investigative framework extremely closely”.

She did not mention whether she had done so thus far – or why it had did not appear to have been presented at the latest meeting of the Police and Crime Panel.

She said: “All victims, but especially those at highest risk and repeat victims of crime, deserve the best possible response from our police force.”