More about this area
The force says...
Sussex Police serves East and West Sussex and the city of Brighton & Hove – an area of 3,780km2. A resident population of 1.65m grows significantly with millions of visitors, holidaymakers, students, seasonal workers and the 39 million passengers who travel through Gatwick Airport.
Urban areas, with their day and night-time economies and more sparsely populated rural areas present contrasting policing challenges from alcohol and drug related crime to wildlife crime.
Already a low-cost force (spending £36m below the national force average), since 2010 the force has made savings of nearly £90m. It continues to systematically transform its services, most recently with a new, flexible local policing approach introduced in late 2017.
With Surrey, further collaboration in the areas of specialist crime and operations is well underway to deliver even greater efficiency and effectiveness, improving services and resilience at a reduced cost.
To address recent crime and incident reporting increases, Sussex is embarking on a significant four-year investment programme – strengthening how it prevents crime and to enhance public contact services – ensuring Sussex remains a low-crime area.
Sussex Police works ever more closely with other forces, emergency services and wider partners. With the Surrey, Hampshire & Thames Valley forces (the South East Regional Integrated Policing programme) its ambitious programme to converge key policing, business functions and technology systems will deliver substantial benefits.
Committed to innovation, sharing resources and systems, collaboration and working smarter Sussex will continue to enhance its capacity and capabilities to tackle emerging crime threats to keep Sussex a safe place.
The force has almost 2,500 police officers and 1,800 police staff, 196 police community support officers and a team of dedicated volunteers that includes over 230 special constables and around 190 police cadets.
Disclaimer: the above statement has been prepared by Sussex Police. The views and information in it are not necessarily those of HMICFRS.