Please find below the latest newsletter from Stephen Armson-Smith, the crime prevention guy from Essex Police. In this one he reminds us about the usefulness of defensive plants. As Corporal Jones would have said to Captain Mannering: “They don't like it up ‘em, Captain, they don't…

I can always tell when the weather is improving in the UK by the number of Home Security Surveys being conducted on this website. Actually, if you look at the numbers spread over the year, the numbers spike with the clock change (March 26th), in the week before Easter school holidays and in the two…

At about this time each year we get to learn about the latest figures for fly-tipping and yet again London has managed to achieve six of the top ten worst fly-tipped places in the country. I'm not surprised that London features high in the table because there are more than eight-and-a-half million…

Over the last couple of days we've been hearing about the latest HMIC report into police effectiveness. HMIC had three main areas of concern: Some forces' attempts to suppress demand are putting people at risk In some cases, police officers are not carrying out sufficiently well their main…

This morning (Wednesday) I read the following and dreadful BBC news story about a couple in their late 50s who were robbed at knifepoint in their Ilford home in East London during the early hours of Monday morning. The account tells us that one of the burglars put his foot on the lady's chest to…

If you have a spare twenty minutes or so might I suggest you have a listen to the Crime Conundrum available on IPlayer Radio at the link below. Prior to 1993 crime in the UK was rising, on average, about 5% per year for about fifty years. In 1993 it peaked at 19 million crime incidents. Then, quite…