Police Priorities.

We read yesterday about a 13 year old schoolboy being investigated by Devon & Cornwall Police regarding the throwing of a marshmellow at another pupil. His father is furious at what he feels is a waste of police time and of it being quite traumatic for his son. While not knowing the specifics of this inquiry, M23LAW has defended on  many more allegations of minor Common Assault in the last decade than hitherto.
The Blair/Brown years did prioritise domestic violence of course and in many cases with due cause.  However, it will be interesting to see how an increasingly demoralised and perhaps understaffed police force deals with the less serious levels of alleged assaults.Will all the domestic violence/community safety specialist units be pared back?
In recent weeks there has been a noticeable drop in cases going through the justice system and it will be interesting to see what lasting effects the cutbacks have. We have also seen first hand the impact on young people of  being processed by police custody suites ( personal data, fingerprints, photos, DNA, interrogation etc) for the first time on relatively minor or perhaps trivial allegations.