Lamont: Extra police numbers pivotal in overall crime fall

The latest crime statistics have been published, along with figures which show there were 17,339 police officers (full-time equivalent) in Scotland on 30 June 2011.

John Lamont MSP, Scottish Conservative Justice Spokesperson, said:

"It would be churlish not to point out the positives in these figures, although before the SNP pat themselves on the back we note that grave offences like non-sexual crimes of violence, rape and attempted rape and crimes of dishonesty such as housebreaking have all increased. However, Scotland's police forces should be congratulated for their efforts in cutting overall crime rates.

"In this regard, we are proud of the role played by the 1000 extra police delivered by Scottish Conservatives in the last parliament. We must never forget that if it had been up to the SNP we would only have had 500 more and if it had been up to Labour we would have had none at all.

"We must not be complacent however and the challenge is to find ways of maintaining that front-line presence, whilst continuing to reduce overall crime in our country."

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