For a possible explanation, then look no further than the latest HMIC report, quoted from this morning's Daily Telegraph app.
"POLICE officers have become unclear about what they are supposed to be doing on the streets, while training focuses on reducing risk rather than creating crime-fighters, inspectors have said.
Some 90,000 officers and staff have their "own individual version of what they think they are there to do and the effect they are meant to have", Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary warned in a report.
I am not surprised.
This is not to say that there are not good coppers, just that coppers have not been trained for many years in the things that the general public want.
We want to feel safe in our homes and on the streets, at all hours.
We don't want to feel persecuted when we get in our cars.
We want our belongings to be protected from theft.
That these are not the general perceptions does not mean it is not so; but until perception matches reality there will always be a problem.