The head of the Metropolitan Police has issued a stark warning over the government's plan to release some dangerous offenders early and the impact cuts to forces will have on crime.
Sir Mark Rowley said his officers spent “massive resources” on Tuesday hunting for teenager who had a record of firearms and machete offences and was released on bail in London.
He argued that promises to reduce offending will not be kept without substantial extra funding for policing.
Six police chiefs have written in Wednesday’s Times arguing that without more investment the government will fail to meet its target to bring down crime amid suggestions that the Home Office is set to face cuts in the upcoming spending review.
It comes after Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced plans to release some serious offenders after serving just one-third of their sentences to help relieve the pressure on full prisons.
Sir Mark told BBC Radio 4 on Wednesday: “For a very long period, sentencing policy and prison building policy [haven’t been] aligned.
“Hence overcrowding, they've got to fix that. But the solution that they've come up with involves many, many more offenders being dealt with in communities rather than being in prison.
“That's why they're spending more money on probation. They've done no analysis on the impact on policing. So that has been settled without any analysis of the impact on policing, the effect on us.
“Every morning I read a log on the way into work of what's gone on in London in the last 24 hours. Yesterday, we were chasing round a teenager who's been involved in machete attacks, who's previously been arrested for firearms and machete offenses.
“We sought his remand in custody. Even under the current system, he was eventually bailed. He skipped his bail on his tag, and we've had to put massive resources into chasing him around. He's been caught within the machete again.
“That's going on day to day. Every time you put an offender into the community, a proportion of them will commit crime, to be clear, the portion of them will need chasing down by the police.”
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has made it his government’s mission to halve knife crime and create “safer streets” by hiring thousands more officers.
But Sir Mark said this would be impossible without more funding.
“Every year across the country, 5% more people are calling 999, looking for help from police,” he said.
“That's a massive number, and that compounds year on year. If I was to have in London today the resources to match the population that we had sort of 12-15, years ago, we [would have] the best part of a billion pounds more.
Sir Mark added: “Then we've got all these new threats. We've got global instability. We've got communities that are more volatile. Look at the awful events that sparked across the country out of the attack in Southport last year. And we've got a government that's really ambitious about what it wants policing to do.”
Chancellor Rachel Reeves is due to deliver her spending review on June 11, where she will lay out how the government plans to fund public services over several years.
A Home Office spokesman said: “We are backing the police to protect our communities and keep our streets safe with up to £17.6billion this year, an increase of up to £1.2billion.
"This includes £200m to kickstart putting 13,000 additional neighbourhood police officers, PCSOs and special constables that the public will see back on their streets and patrolling communities."
Housing minister Matthew Pennycook warned that "we can't build our way out of" prison capacity pressures in the short term.
Responding to police chiefs' warnings, Mr Pennycook told Times Radio: "The risk to public safety I'd highlight is the prospect of our prison system collapsing, which is what we face and why we've had to act."
