According to the Daily Express, over 1000 serving police officers in the UK have criminal convictions including dishonesty, assault and burglary.

Is this acceptable? Or are slack recruitment practices letting the force down?

That is disgraceful, especially when many of those convicted of violent crimes were still able to keep their jobs. I believe that the convictions, at least the criminal convictions, came after they were on the force, not before, so it is not really a recruitment issue. However, they should have been fired. Those who simply had traffic violations - well, what can I say. Lots of people have those and it doesn't affect their work, even if they are drivers.