Herts PCC says there’s still a ‘huge’ amount of work to be done to solve more crimes
Jonathan Ash-Edwards, PCC for Hertfordshire says "policing doesn't solve enough crime"
The Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) has said he will keep pushing for more cases to be solved to ensure better outcomes for victims, saying there is a “huge amount of work still to do”.
Jonathan Ash-Edwards, PCC for Hertfordshire, set out his priorities in a police and crime plan in 2025, which includes ‘bringing more offenders to justice’ and ‘reducing the proportion of investigations that are closed with no suspect being identified’.
Speaking to Greatest Hits Radio, Mr Ash-Edwards said: “Policing doesn't solve enough crime. That's not a controversial statement nationally and locally.
“Not enough crimes that are reported by victims result in an offender being held to account. That that's a challenge that a lot of police forces have and Hertfordshire has not been immune to that.”
“It's absolutely fundamental to ensuring that victims are getting justice done for whatever has happened to them and the defendants are being held to account, being taken off the streets and locked up in the most serious cases.
Mr Ash-Edwards also says, “there is a huge amount of work still to do, but again some progress is being made.”
Adding: “In 2025, Hertfordshire constabulary solved about 1,300 more crimes compared to the previous year. That's 1,300 more victims getting an outcome and 1,300 more offenders being dealt with and held to account.
“The ambition that the Chief Constable and I have is to go from being towards the bottom end of the table of police forces nationally for solving crime, to be right towards the top end. That really matters as a key measure of the effectiveness of policing.
“Solving crime is something that only the police can do - there's lots of things that policing gets dragged into that other agencies can be doing - but solving crime and catching criminals is something only the police can do, and we need a lot more of it happening.”