If only we funded the police with trillions of dollars, then they could use that funding to update their computer systems. Awe well, guess it comes down to the old saying "you can't have your assault vehicles and system security too"
The government has cut police budgets in real terms massively over the last decade or so.
Even if they wanted to current police forces simply lack the resources, they've (the gov) also juggled the crime stats so it looks like crime has stayed steady or declined (hence they can 'justify' the cuts).
The UK is in a complete shambles at the moment.
Years of unnecessary austerity combined with a government determined to privatise everything no matter what the actual (if any) benefit on ideological grounds has left it that way..but we keep voting for them and so we get the government we deserve* (*which we wouldn't have if we could get rid of our stupid first past the post voting system).
One of the big points of the “defund the police” movement is that, quite simply, the police are responsible for way too many things and a) make poor resource allocation decisions and b) don’t really have the skills to do some of the things they’re tasked with so replacing them with smaller bodies that take some of their workload would make sense. Sadly, investigating crime seems to be one of those things.
This is inevitable. Even before the defund the police movement, departments across the country had police shortages where for every 5 officers they needed, they only had 3.
Things have gotten worse regardless of which side of the debate you're on
I was just expecting AI and robots to take over ala Robocop and Little Sister cameras everywhere. I did not foresee the gig companies like Bannerman and Citizen doing it, but here we are.
They could make do with what they have if they made an honest effort to make do with it.
The cost of a body on the job depends a lot on how you field that body. Equip the officer with the latest and greatest tech the cost of each officer-hour goes up significantly. Don't hire enough people and make people work overtime and the cost of an average officer-hour skyrockets
Look at how small town 4-person departments in low crime areas operate. They can't simply ask for money because the town knows they don't need it.
As a citizen of the UK I can tell you that until Brexit became along the political narrative since Cameron became PM had been all about 'The Cuts'. The fact that, despite widespread cuts to the civil service and the police, spending has increased just goes to show that ideology has become more important than sense in 2018.
Talking about the specifics however, the number of police officers in the UK have been reduced by around 19 thousand. Since that only leaves 126k I hope you will find that significant. I find the continued expenditure on unproven gadgets rather distasteful against this backdrop.
I suspect for most forces the payroll budget is nowhere near large enough to hire people with appropriate skills, either. I've lived in places where the chief of police's salary would be considered entry-level pay by IT professionals.
Honestly, I don't have a lot of sympathy. Many PDs have done this to themselves with bullshit like asset seizures, buying military-grade equipment for no reason, dragging their feet on officer investigations and complaints ("paid administrative leave"...what a joke) just to name a few.
Over the past ~60 years as municipal budgets for infrastructure, parks, social services and the like have shrunk, you know what part hasn't but actually got larger? Police budgets. And look where it's got us today.
Reading a lot of the comment there seems to be a recency bias towards complaining a more recent set of policies to change police funding and ignoring the more long term problem that police may not be meeting the people needs even with large budgets.
The issue might not be funding level but misuse as you point out.
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