Brandon To: Even a 13-year-old knows crime is out of hand. Why doesn’t the state? 

Brandon To is a Politics graduate from UCL and a Hong Kong BN(O) immigrant settled in Harrow.

When 13-year-old Steven in Reading had his bike stolen on his birthday, he did something unusual. He didn’t simply complain to his dad or shrug his shoulders. He started a petition.

Going door to door in his neighbourhood in Coley Park, he began collecting signatures, urging the council, police and his MP to take local crime seriously. Residents quickly rallied behind him. They spoke about discarded needles, repeated car break-ins, all sorts of anti-social behaviour, and an overgrown alleyway that criminals use as an escape route.

It is, on the face of it, a small story in Reading. But it raises a much larger question.

If a child can recognise that something is wrong with the way crime is handled in Britain, why can’t the state?

The first answer is a problem of responsibility. In theory, everyone is responsible for crime: the police, the council, community safety partnerships, and central government. In practice, that means no one is accountable. The police point to limited resources. Councils blame the central government. Officials promise to “monitor the situation”. Meanwhile, the alleyway remains overgrown, and residents lose confidence that anyone is truly in charge.

This diffusion of responsibility is one of the quiet weaknesses of British governance. When problems span multiple agencies, decisive action becomes difficult. Everyone has a role, so no one is responsible.

This fragmentation of responsibility weakens the system as a whole. But even if responsibility were clearer, another challenge would remain — the culture within the policing system.

Britain’s police forces remain staffed by thousands of dedicated officers who want to keep their communities safe. But the job’s incentives have changed.

For much of the twentieth century, policing carried a strong sense of professional pride. Officers were expected to maintain order, solve crimes, and earn the trust of their communities. Today, that confidence has eroded. Every arrest risks becoming a political flashpoint. A suspect’s identity can trigger accusations of discrimination from the left and bias from the right. Arresting a criminal with decisive force? Police brutality. But attempting to minimise the force used? Soft and useless.

Policing in the social media age is conducted under a permanent microscope.

The result? Caution. Officers quickly learn that avoiding controversy can be safer than taking decisive action. And when there’s no clear evidence, it’s always easier to close the file rather than arrest suspects and interrogate them, which might risk them another slander.

At the same time, the internal incentives of policing do not always reward what the public assumes they should. Career advancement often depends more on administrative competence and navigating institutional processes than on the old-fashioned detective work of catching criminals or resolving neighbourhood problems. The system rewards professionalism, but in bureaucracy, not performance.

So, what should be done?

First, Britain needs to rebuild pride in policing. Trust between communities and officers cannot simply be demanded; it has to be cultivated. Schools should treat the police as part of civic life again. Regular visits to police stations, school talks from officers, and youth programmes that introduce children to policing could help rebuild familiarity and respect. The goal is simple: young people should grow up seeing the police not as distant authority figures, but as a visible part of their community.

At the same time, misinformation about policing should be taken more seriously. In the age of viral social media, a misleading video or false accusation can spread faster than any official clarification. That does not mean legitimate criticism should be silenced — genuine misconduct must always be investigated. But there should be a clearer distinction between accountability and slander. When demonstrably false claims about police actions circulate online, authorities should respond quickly and publicly to correct the record.

Second, policing incentives need reform.

Officers who consistently solve crimes and disrupt criminal activity should see faster promotion and greater recognition. Those who repeatedly fail to perform should not simply progress through seniority. A clearer link between professional advancement and operational effectiveness would restore both pride and accountability within the profession.

None of this would eliminate crime overnight. Policing is only one part of the picture. Long-term reductions in crime depend on deeper forces: economic opportunity, and a sense that people have a future worth investing in.

But that is a longer-term challenge. In the immediate term, citizens expect something simpler: the basic maintenance of order by our police.

What makes the story in Reading striking is not simply the theft itself. It is that when a kid knows crime is getting out of hand, perhaps it is time policymakers do too.