POLICE officers have become "prisoners of bureaucracy and red tape", according to the chairman of the Dorset Police Federation.

Clive Chamberlain said the effectiveness of the police is being stifled because so much time is spent on paperwork.

He said: "This is a national issue that is mirrored in Dorset.

"It has been going on for several years.

"Successive home secretaries have come to Police Federation conferences promising to do something.

"Any home secretary that does manage to deliver the police from this bureaucracy will go down in history because it is something that none of the others have managed."

Figures from the Home Office show that only one policeman in 58 is on patrol at a given time.

There are now 143,000 police in England and Wales but only 2,400 of them at any time will be patrolling the streets.

Over the last two years, hours spent on patrol have decreased and police hours behind desks filling in forms have increased.

Mr Chamberlain explained that Dorset Police was giving officers laptops so they would be able to do some of their work while out in their cars.

He said: "That would help improve visibility and mean police officers did not have to return to the station so often to fill in forms."

He explained that while officers were engaged in paperwork they were still available to respond to emergency calls.

He said: "What is not getting done is the preventative patrol work."

In Dorset there are approximately 1,500 police officers.

At 8pm on December 4 last year 68 of them were on patrol, which works out as one in about 22.