6
May
2015
By Calvin at 13:21 GMT, 10 years ago
Very recently I produced some guidance for one of our police services that no longer employs Crime Prevention Officers. The member of police staff who was given the task to put together some basic information for his police colleagues (a retired career detective) freely admitted to me that he had very little knowledge of crime prevention and was struggling to know where to start. This doesn’t come as a surprise to me since the way of thinking about preventing crime is very different from the thought processes he would have used as a detective.
Huge budget cuts (with more to come) and the need to maintain the ‘front line’ and of course catch and prosecute offenders has meant that Chief Constables have had to take some difficult decisions. Consequently, some of the support services have been reduced and in a few cases, as in the example given above, the crime prevention service has all but gone.
Understandably and quite rightly, some of the police chiefs have reached the conclusion that all police officers and PCSOs should be able to give crime prevention advice and some of them have been providing limited training and basic crime prevention guidance for their officers. I use the word ‘basic’ deliberately, because offering advice about someone’s security without a firm grasp of building regulations and health and safety legislation could be problematic.
So, I’ve been thinking about how I can further help the police and have decided to start putting together some material that focuses on the most important things they should be telling victims. Fortunately, with my many years involved in crime prevention, I can tell, with some degree of confidence, what works and what doesn’t work and I have access to the data from my Home Security Survey, which reveals the nation’s most common home security weaknesses. By combining my knowledge and the data together I have come up with what I call the basic home security advice package for police. My draft can be found in the Reference section of the site and police officers and PCSOs are welcome to copy and paste the information if they think it will help them. All I ask is that if it is used on a police website or in a guidance document that acknowledgement is given to The Crime Prevention Website. Please note that this information is my first draft and I will be updating it from time to time
Police Guidance Domestic Burglary http://thecrimepreventionwebsite.com/police-guidance/770/domestic-burglary/
