Prevention first. That's meant to be the motto of our police force. Solve crime, sure, but whenever possible, stamp it out before it occurs.

But how can police do that, when they're struggling to even deal with the crime that's happening? As our population has boomed, police numbers have stayed the same. So effectively, they've dropped.

The Government is now discussing bringing in more police officers, as well they should. If they want to get back to the ratio of officers to citizens that we had in 2009, they'll need to hire at least 471.

But they should consider what they want to do, when they look at how many to bring on board. It's well documented that our domestic violence rate is terrible, and to address it requires a huge amount of police time. Not just being on the scene for hours, calming people, maybe finding a place to stay for frightened children. But filing a mountain of paperwork afterwards, informing Women's Refuge and CYF. Just one incident can take several hours for police to deal with.

Then there are the chronic issues, the ones that tend to get overlooked when staffing runs short. Drug crime, organised crime. These often go unreported, thanks to a seedy underworld that prefers to deal with its own issues. For police to crack down on it requires developing informants and spending fruitless weeks investigating, all without being distracted by the jobs being called in. But when you're struggling to deal with the work in front of you, you're not going to go looking for more.

It's easy to claim that better equipment such as smartphones makes up for the drop in numbers. But while it might make paperwork easier to do on the run, the paperwork still needs filling out. Meanwhile the basics of actual policing requires people, and more of them.

The decision in front of the Government is clear. Do you want police to do a good job, to give them a chance at true prevention? Or do you want more band aids?