In 2010, following the Global Financial Crisis, the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government committed the British people to an ‘age of austerity’. The coalition’s fiscal policy and approach to government was largely in alignment with the entrenched British neoliberalism of the preceding three decades. However, one distinctive feature of the ‘age of austerity’ was the government’s identification of the police as a site for funding cuts. This heralded a reversal of the police’s sustained fortunes under both Conservative and Labour governments since the late 1970s. Perhaps unsurprisingly, police leaders and representative bodies emerged as government detractors, claiming that the police frontline had been incapacitated by austerity, with consequent effects for public safety. Such claims have been reiterated by journalists, HM Inspectorate of Constabulary, Police and Crime Commissioners, and academics, amongst others. As such, there now exists an abiding common-sense that the police in England and Wales were hamstrung by austerity. Yet, this common-sense runs counter to the established literature demonstrating that periods of economic decline tend to be accompanied by increased policing and social control. Proceeding from these insights, this chapter provides an alternative reading of post-austerity policing. It aims to demonstrate that blanket claims about austerity imperilling the police frontline and compromising public safety misread the police mandate and obscure the continued and intensified policing of racialised communities in the post-austerity period, especially in respect of Black people and communities. To illustrate its contentions, the chapter presents two case studies: knife crime and the policification of schools.