H EADLINES ON NEWS-STANDS up and down England make for grisly reading. On November 16th a man was stabbed on the seafront of Weymouth, a quiet town on the south coast. Two days later a 16-year-old boy was knifed at a house in Birmingham. On the same day in London a gang of ten men stabbed four others sitting in a car on a residential street; one of the victims had been shot at less than 24 hours earlier.

Rising violence is leading to calls for the police to be given more money. Squeezed budgets have cut the number of officers by 15% since 2010. But the crime wave has also revived talk of police reform. England and Wales have 43 forces, from London’s mammoth Metropolitan Police (with 31,075 officers) to Warwickshire’s tiny constabulary (with 823). Some argue that encouraging them to merge, or at least work more closely together, could save money and improve their ability to tackle violence.

A recent change in the illegal-drugs market to a model known as “county lines”, where gangs in big cities like London and Liverpool muscle into provincial towns, has sparked turf wars fought across police boundaries. Constabularies are struggling to co-ordinate their response. Small forces in coastal towns are seeing spikes in violence fuelled by drugs networks hundreds of miles away, says Tim Champion, a detective at the County Lines Co-ordination Centre, a national body set up in August. “They don’t have the scope to deal with it,” he says. Rolling out national initiatives like his takes time, as they must be agreed by the chief constables and commissioners in each district—86 people in total.

Some forces are working more closely together, though mainly to save costs. Five constabularies in the East Midlands have merged their back offices and share units for major crimes like murder. It was once hoped that such arrangements might kick-start a process of amalgamation. But alliances are breaking up. Last month West Mercia Police pulled out of its partnership with Warwickshire, complaining that it shouldered too much of the burden. A few days earlier Devon and Cornwall Police scrapped plans to merge with Dorset, owing to a row about funding.

Talk of mergers meets stiff local opposition, not least from the elected commissioners who govern each force. John Apter of the Police Federation, which represents officers, is wary of regionalisation. Bigger forces might struggle to forge relationships with local communities, he says.

Others believe they would find it easier. Merging forces saves money and would therefore reduce the number of officers lost to future cuts, says Rick Muir of the Police Foundation, a think-tank. And diverting complex crimes like online fraud to national bodies staffed by specialists would take pressure off regular bobbies and help them to get back on the streets.

Mergers would not solve every problem, warns Simon Cole, chief constable of Leicestershire. Like most police, he says extra funds are also needed. But Scotland merged its eight forces into one in 2013 and is seeing better results for less money (see article). As violence continues to climb south of the border, the English could do worse than look north.