Taking the law into OUR OWN HANDS

With fewer bobbies on the beat, Brits are tackling crime themselves, but just how far can we go?

With crime numbers steadily rising, it isn’t a surprise that police forces are stretched to their limits. Last year alone saw 6.3 million crimes committed in England and Wales – up from 5.4 million the year before*. It has long been reported that police are under-resourced and under-funded, and a report last year found that half of police forces failed to meet standards in crime investigations. As a result, the public are taking huge risks and taking the law into their own hands in order to tackle crime.

The last few years have seen an increase in communities using neighbourhood messaging apps, such as Nextdoor, and social media to investigate crimes. By sharing images of suspects caught on CCTV, household cameras or video doorbells, people are able to identify suspects. But rather than taking the evidence to the police, some are going a step further and confronting suspects themselves.

We speak to a woman whose husband tracked down and confronted a thief…

‘WE WEREN’T WILLING TO GIVE UP’

Suzie Dunster, 39, lives in Eastbourne with her husband Scott, 38, and their two children, Dorothy, five, and Kit, three.
When my husband and I reported a crime to the police in December 2022, of course we expected them to investigate and at the very least send someone out to speak to us and take a statement. Perhaps we were naive. What we weren’t expecting was to take on the role of police officers ourselves.