Jay Singh-Sohal

113% Rise In West Midlands Crime Under A Decade Of Labour PCCs

Crime in the West Midlands has more than doubled during a decade of a Labour Police and Crime Commissioner.

That’s the alarming findings from a Freedom of Information request and analysis undertaken by a local campaigner that shows that between 2012 and 2022, total annual crime has increased by 113%, or up by 193,807 incidents.

The rise to 365,539 crimes in 2022 includes significant increases in violence against the person, sexual offences, public order offences, possession of weapons and miscellaneous crimes against society which includes defendants skipping bail, dangerous driving and perjury.

It brings into question the lack of effective action by the elected official charged locally with tackling crime, the regions’ Police and Crime Commissioner.

Jay Singh-Sohal, an Army Reserve Captain and behaviour change expert, stood for the role of the West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner to stop police station closures in towns including Sutton Coldfield and Solihull, and to tackle rising crime.

His campaigning has led him to uncover the worrying statistics at a time when blame for local policing failures is being shifted onto government, despite significant increases to the budget of West Midlands police by the Conservatives to nearly £700m a year.

Capt. Singh-Sohal is now calling for the Police and Crime Commissioner role to be merged with that of the West Midlands Mayor so that better leadership of policing can be implemented, with the deployment of more policy levers from the mayoralty, to take action against the horrific levels of recorded crime in the region.

Jay Singh-Sohal says:

“Our region has now become the “Wild” West Midlands after a decade of Labour PCCs playing politics with the role rather than doing the job they’re paid three times the national average salary to do, to tackle criminals.

“The revealing numbers, and indeed his response to them, expose the Police Commissioner’s false claims about the reasons why crime is so high in our region, the year-on-year increases provide the evidence of a clear failure by the PCC himself – the person in charge locally – to do something about it.

“He is unable to get a grip on spiralling problems such as possession of weapons (up 496%), public order offences (up 486%) and violence against the person (up 439%). 

“It’s costing lives and livelihoods, so the failing PCC should do the decent thing, take responsibility for a decade of failures and step aside.  But instead, by passing the buck the Commissioner is simply showing the desperation of his position as a weak and uninspiring leader, incapable of creating change to improve our region.

“It’s a surprise West Midlands Police has not yet been placed into special measures because of these crime figures.  So, we need to take action sooner rather than later.  It’s now time for the government to intervene to give our elected Mayor powers over policing, such as it is in London and Manchester, so that Labour’s failures can finally be addressed with a robust and direct approach to get crime down.”

The next West Midlands PCC election is due to take place in May 2024.

Ends.