When the current Chief Constable of the PSNI took over the position on a permanent basis, almost a year ago, he said instilling confidence back into the force was one of his main priorities.
And the truth was that after a spate of PR disasters the public that the PSNI exists to serve was rapidly losing faith in its ability to do the job.
Officers’ morale was also at its lowest level, with numbers dwindling and those retiring not replaced. There was a crisis waiting around every turn.
Those leaks and public relation disasters may have been stemmed since Jon Boutcher took the reins. But attention must also be on the performance of the PSNI and how that aligns to the expectations placed on it by the society it polices.
And it does all come with the caveat that resources within policing are at the lowest they’ve ever been, with little sign of any immediate improvement.
But where does that all leave the victims of crime? According to Geraldine Hanna, Commissioner Designate for Victims of Crime, not in a very good place.
She says the results of a new survey paint “a very bleak picture of our criminal justice system” after it found that only 7% of respondents felt the system could deliver for them.
Add to that 63% of victims feeling the police did not investigate their case properly, and 43% adding that based on their experience they would not bother reporting a crime to the police again, it seems there’s still an awful lot of work to be done to win that trust again.
It is, of course, not all down to simply the PSNI. They walk hand in hand with the courts, and there too there are issues for victims who are often left waiting for years before seeing justice done.
For any criminal justice system to be effective it has to be seen to be efficient. Victims need to know that from the moment a crime is reported through to the conclusion of the case, should it go as far as the courts, that their needs will be met.
The survey, she added, is “nothing short of an SOS from victims of crime”.
It’s not as if a wake-up call was needed for the Department of Justice. It has been known for some time that the more resources are stretched, the more gaps in the system appear for victims to fall through.
Ways need to be found in the short term to do things better, to correct what the Commissioner Designate says is an “inconsistent delivery of basic services”.
Unless that happens there’s only one way confidence in the police force, and the justice system as a whole, is going to go. And it’s not the direction anyone wants or needs.