Why Policing Is Broken - Jay Darkmoore

The Reality Behind Police Statistics

Jay begins by dismantling the often-cited official police statistics that politicians and senior leadership frequently tout, emphasizing that these numbers can be "fudged" or manipulated to present a rosier picture than the frontline reality. Senior leadership teams, driven by personal career ambitions and external political pressures, often push for performance metrics that prioritize easily measurable outcomes such as arrest or detection rates over genuine public safety improvements. This leads to a focus on what Jay calls "low-hanging fruit" — minor offenses or socially charged crimes like online hate speech — rather than the more resource-intensive and complex issues such as knife crime or burglaries that genuinely impact people's sense of safety.

This misalignment creates a dissonance between public perception and official narratives. While authorities claim crime is down, many citizens, especially in urban areas, feel increasingly unsafe as incidents like phone theft and violent street crime appear rampant. Jay highlights a growing public crisis, warning that with officers leaving in unprecedented numbers—up to 10,000 a year as projected by the police federation—there may soon be a dangerous shortage of policing resources. This mass exodus, driven by burnout and frustration, threatens the basic ability of the public to get emergency help when they call 999.

Officer Morale, and Mental Health Crisis

One of the most poignant parts of the discussion centers on the deteriorating mental health and morale of police officers on the ground. Jay explains that the pressures are multifaceted: officers face overwhelming workloads, attending to dozens of victims' cases while also responding to countless calls, many of which are mental health related, an area for which they are often ill-equipped.

He describes the high emotional toll of frontline policing, where officers routinely face traumatic incidents such as suicides and domestic violence, often alone due to single-crewing policies and staffing shortages. The trauma accumulates, but support services are inadequate. Despite official claims that mental health resources exist, Jay argues that officers often must wait weeks or months for help, while continuing to endure stressful shifts without proper rest or recovery time. Instead of empathy, officers frequently encounter skepticism or blame from supervisors when they report stress or take sick leave for mental health reasons. This culture of punishment for vulnerability only exacerbates the crisis.

Jay recalls how some officers experience "empathy burnout" after constant exposure to human suffering, which dulls their ability to engage compassionately with victims and communities. The situation is worsened by pay cuts amounting to a 21% real-terms reduction since 2010, alongside media criticism and political neglect, making it unsurprising that many officers feel unsupported and opt to leave the service.

The Impact of Senior Leadership

Jay attributes many of the systemic problems to the agendas of senior police officials and politicians. Performance targets have evolved into blunt instruments of measurement that don't account for nuance or the complexity of policing. Officers on the ground are pressured to meet arrest quotas and detection statistics, with less emphasis on the quality of justice or fairness. There are even reports that custody sergeants and supervisors grade officers based on numeric outputs such as arrests and stop searches rather than sound policing judgement.

Such pressure leads to practices like "lock-up first, ask questions later," where officers are instructed to arrest individuals even in domestic violence situations where there may be no true necessity, just to meet quota demands. This blanket approach risks criminalizing minor disputes, harming innocent people, and even enabling abusers to manipulate the system for coercive control. Jay relates a striking story of a woman suffering domestic abuse who was discouraged from reporting when officers prioritized small drug offenses over her well-being, illustrating how the system's punitive orientation can repel genuine victims.

This "tick-box" culture also shapes which crimes police prioritize. Hate crimes, for example, are sometimes pursued based on perceived evidence rather than clear victim reports, because they make the department look committed to progressive causes. Jay expresses concern that such politically motivated priorities detract from effective crime-fighting and alienate officers who joined to make a real difference.

Recruitment, Training, and Diversity Initiatives

The mass departure of experienced officers has forced police forces to lower recruitment standards to fill vacancies. This has led to a workforce with many officers lacking sufficient field experience, often receiving only about 16 weeks of training before being deployed. New recruits are sometimes overseen by equally inexperienced trainers, resulting in insufficiently prepared officers who rely heavily on rigid scripts and directives rather than sound professional judgement. This further aggravates poor morale, as officers feel they are being turned into automatons rather than trusted professionals.

Jay also critiques diversity and equity initiatives within the police. While he acknowledges and respects colleagues from diverse backgrounds and supports fair representation, he cautions against prioritizing identity characteristics over qualifications and suitability for critical roles. He raises concerns about political ideologies influencing hiring, promotion, and specialist roles such as firearms, where competence must be paramount given the high-stakes nature of the work. According to Jay, these initiatives sometimes sideline better qualified candidates in favor of fulfilling diversity quotas, which risks public safety and undermines police effectiveness.

Politicization and External Pressures

Jay emphasizes that much of this turmoil is driven from the top, influenced by political actors such as police and crime commissioners who hold chief constables accountable. This blurs the line between politics and policing – a cause of significant concern given the ideal of police independence and impartiality. The "gaslighting" Jay refers to extends beyond public messaging to encompass internal contradictions where senior management denies frontline experiences and pushes misleading narratives that "crime is down" or that policing is not a stats game, while officers on the ground face the exact opposite reality.

The episode also touches on the College of Policing's role and how ideological trends—such as the emphasis on identity politics and pronoun usage—filter down to officers. Jay notes these initiatives sometimes distract from the core demands of policing and are implemented unevenly depending on the local leadership's ideological leanings.

The Burden of Non-Traditional Policing

Jay sheds light on another major challenge: policing has taken on vast responsibilities for issues traditionally outside law enforcement, especially mental health crises. Often, police are the first responders to suicidal or mentally unwell individuals — responding quicker than the ambulance service can. This reality further strains resources and morale, as most officers lack mental health training but become de facto crisis managers, stuck in hours-long standoffs awaiting specialized support. This diversion pulls officers away from crime prevention and investigation, worsening service quality.

Final Reflections and Calls for Reform

Toward the end of the conversation, Jay reflects on the cumulative damage caused by political interference, dysfunctional leadership, and unsustainable workloads. He remarks that the policing model has deteriorated from a profession built on experience, autonomy, and public trust to one dominated by bureaucracy, quotas, and short-term optics.

One particularly humanizing insight Jay offers is on trauma therapy: sharing his personal experience, he advocates for exploration into psychedelic-assisted therapy to address deep-rooted trauma among officers and offenders alike, suggesting this might hold promise in reducing the societal cycles of crime and mental health breakdown.

In closing, Jay's testimony serves as a wrenching call to acknowledge the reality behind bureaucratic facades. The nation's police are at a crossroads — internal dysfunction and external pressures threaten their capacity to deliver genuine safety and justice. Without urgent reforms that restore officer support, reasonable workloads, and leadership accountability, the public may soon find the most basic promise of policing—the ability to call for help and have it answered—gravely imperiled.