The barista will take down your particulars

Picture: Costa

Until I went to live in America, the meme about US cops "hanging out in donut shops" (to quote The Bangles) seemed something of a cartoon myth. And then I went to live in America, renting a 'condo' in a new housing development with its own branch of Starbucks, and there, every morning, queuing with me for their 'morning joe' would be several representatives of the Sunnyvale Police Department.

Now, in my local Costa in Greenwich, I often see the borough's constabulary queuing for cappuccinos. But the more I think of it, the more such visibility reassures, especially given the latest crime figures, released yesterday by the Office for National Statistics. In the 12 months to the end of March there were almost five million crimes committed across England and Wales, an increase of 458,000 offences on the previous 12 months. And although London saw a more modest increase of just four per cent in the total number committed that figure includes a significant rise in violent crime. Indeed, since I've been back in London, barely a day has passed without the Evening Standard reporting another senseless stabbing, as gangs carry out their bloody turf wars. Knife crime has increased in London by 24 per cent. On top of that, the city has been inundated with moped-born muggings, with police seemingly unable - or not allowed - to prevent them for fear of another teenage miscreant losing his life in a pursuit. And now we have the apparent epidemic of acid attacks, with thugs choosing callously and cynically to render their victims with life-altering disfigurement.

It's easy to conclude, then, that London's streets (and, yes, Glasgow's or Liverpool's too) are becoming too dangerous, and that we should cocoon ourselves away. Not so, of course. But there's no doubt that encroaching high levels of street crime, not to mention recent terror events, are impacting the choices people make on where they go out, or even whether they go out. Just last Friday night, and no more than a five-minute walk from my front door, 31-year-old Danny Pearce, father to a five-year-old daughter, was stabbed to death in Greenwich town centre, apparently by thugs on a moped who took his mobile phone and Rolex watch, as he walked home from a jazz club. When it happens right in the midst of where you live, and and in a street frequented by tourists, you can't help take a different perspective on community policing needs. With the Metropolitan Police facing drastic budget cuts of up to £400 million at a time when crime and the terror threat is on the rise, you actually must feel sympathy for the thin blue line, as expectations increase on what they can do, just as they're finding they're less able to do it.

So, to return to the coffee shop theme, the latest idea for community policing is for officers to set up shop in high street branches of the big coffee chains. This is one proposal from London's mayor, Sadiq Khan, as the Met is forced to close more of its actual police stations to save money. Traditional high street stations have been disappearing at a rate of knots over the last few years: in the London suburb of New Malden, where I grew up, the once familiar police station next to The Fountain roundabout (and across the road from a once notorious pub of the same name) has been turned into a pub itself, The Watchman. Oh, the irony of eating gastropub food in what used to be the station's cells...

Khan has said that 40 police stations will be closed along with other local contact kiosks in libraries and supermarkets, leaving around 32 in operation - roughly one per borough. Instead, the public will be encouraged to report crime via the Internet or phone, rather than walking into a physical location. The argument being made is that these days fewer people, anyway, are actually going into police stations voluntarily, either to ask for directions or to actually report crime. The era of Dixon Of Dock Green is well and truly over. The logic, therefore, is that a borough's ward teams get out and about in London's high streets (where coffee shops have proliferated as other forms of employment have disappeared). As a result, the likes of Costa, Starbucks and Cafe Nero have become prominent parts of local social fabric, making them sensible locations for community engagement. But is such visibility enough? Didn't the local nick, with its traditional blue lamp above the front door, provide a more imposing statement of the police's authority in a town?

The mayor and senior Met officers apparently want to see officers spend more time on the beat. The trouble, though, is not so much where as to who and how many: Khan has warned that London's police numbers could fall below 30,000 as a result of government cuts, putting severe strain on the Met's plan to have at least two dedicated beat officers in every London ward by the end of the year.

As the BBC's brilliant recent fly-on-the-wall series The Met demonstrated, London's police do a remarkable job. Along with the fire and ambulance services I really only have absolute admiration for what they do, and the Grenfell fire and the events of June 3 in Borough Market only underline why the emergency services deserve to be resourced properly. Being able to engage the police in my local Costa is probably more of a PR exercise than one that actually prevents or reduces crime. And a coffee shop is no substitute for a police station, anyway. After all, where would you lock someone up?