Where in the UK has the highest number of unsolved burglaries in the country? If, like me, your immediate response was to plump for somewhere in London, or in one of the bigger cities, think again. According to a report in last Sunday's Observer, the answer is in fact much closer to home.

Top of the unwanted charts are the New Forest villages of Lyndhurst and Minstead, where there are 84 outstanding burglaries that currently remain unsolved. How many burglaries have Hampshire Police solved there in the past three years? The answer, depressingly, is zero.

The New Forest is not alone in this. Across the country, the police have all but given up in tackling low-level crime. National figures for the year up to March 2023 show that suspects are charged for only two per cent of bike thefts, three per cent of low-level assaults and four per cent of residential burglaries.

The overall charge rates in the UK have shown a steady decline in recent years, from 17 per cent in 2015 to just six per cent today. In our area, Wiltshire is just above the national average (7.7 per cent) and Hampshire just below (4.7 per cent).

Shoplifting is of particular concern. For stolen goods less than £50, the police simply don't get involved. The Co-op recently reported that crime in its stores was at a record high: 1000 cases of crime, shoplifting and anti-social behaviour in its stores every day during the first six months of 2023. At the weekend, Tesco announced it would offer its staff body cams after cases of verbal and physical assault rose by a third over the last year.

The result has been an effective decriminalisation of such lower-level crimes. On one side, this emboldens criminals, knowing that they are unlikely to get caught. On the other side, it has led to communities giving up on the police and taking matters into their own hands. In Lyndhurst, shopkeepers know that they are more likely to get a result posting on private social media groups than contacting the police.

The police would argue (with some justification) that they've been hampered by cuts in funding (20-30 per cent in real terms since 2010, depending on which account you read). That means making difficult choices as to which cases they investigate: without more funding, they don't have the resources to tackle every crime.

Either way, the fact such cases aren't tackled has consequences. Policing works by consent: without it, the system breaks down. Some at the top have begun to acknowledge this. Andy Cooke, the Chief Inspector to the Constabulary, said in June that 'public confidence hangs by a thread and the foundations of the Peelian principles have been shaken.' In places like Lyndhurst, that thread has all but snapped already.