I live in London.It has already gone way beyond of what Orwell could have ever imagined. However,despite of all the surveillance, London is the crime capital of the world.This is probably the best place for criminals,as unless you pull a machine gun on a crowd,not much will be investigated.
I live in the UK and I feel like this is the crux of the issue. I am an active member of a sports car forum in the UK and it's terrifying how little police does in case of theft, even when the house was broken into to get the keys. If you get someone to come out and write down a report that is a miracle in itself - in 90% of cases you are just given a case number and told to speak with your insurer, nothing is ever done. I know a guy whose Range Rover was stolen, he reported it, no one came out - then few days later found it parked in a car park nearby, he rang the police to tell them that he found his stolen car, where it is, and asked if they want to come over and maybe catch whoever comes for it(or you know, maybe take fingerprints and such)? Nah, he was told that if he still has the key he can just take it, they don't have any officers to actually come out anyway. I have friends who were robbed, burgled ,and literally nothing is ever done. There is zero police on the roads around where I live, I'm actually surprised people still follow the rules of the road because realistically, the chances of ever running into a police car are somewhere around zero.
It just feels like police in the UK has been gutted to the point that unless you are literally being shot/stabbed, there is not enough resources to actually help or investigate anything. It's a shell of a functional service.
There's some evidence to suggest that more policing leads to more crime (drops in policing are correlated with a lower # of major crimes). If you're going to be hassled by police anyway, why not go large? Hence the old proverb 'might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.'
We don't necessarily need more police on the streets ( depends on the area,as always), however there's a genuine need for more,who can solve cases.I've got endless list of examples, including my own situations,where police do either nothing,because the matter is deemed not serious enough or simply don't have resources to deal with it,unless it's an attempt to murder, political threats or terrorism.
