3
Mar
2017
By Calvin at 10:52 GMT, 8 years ago
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 activities of preventing crime, keeping people safe and catching criminals
- Police capabilities that are needed now and will continue to be needed in the future, such as skilled investigators and neighbourhood policing, are insufficient or being eroded.
My interest obviously focuses on how well our police forces are performing in respect to crime prevention. After all, crimes prevented mean fewer investigations, fewer prosecutions, fewer victims and therefore financial savings.
So, with regard to my interest, here’s a few paragraphs pulled from the report that mention crime prevention and its bedrock; problem solving.
“When done properly, crime prevention and problem-solving are cost effective: they are cheaper than the investigation of committed crime and can reduce demand not only for the services of the police but also for other public services.
“We were disappointed to find that in over 30 forces problem solving was either inconsistent and unstructured or virtually non-existent. There was limited evidence of both established and new problem-solving models. While neighbourhood officers in three-quarters of forces demonstrated knowledge of models such as the [problem solving] SARA model their use was not widespread.
“HMIC is concerned that problem-solving initiatives based on data analysis and local information are not being used frequently by forces. As discussed earlier in this chapter, there is a decline in forces using analysis to produce high-quality neighbourhood profiles to help identify where crime and anti-social behaviour occurs.
“HMIC found some pockets of good practice in terms of the use of profiles at a local level: for example, Durham Constabulary had a clearly defined and informed process for the management of problem-solving plans, which included a good structure, partnership involvement, regular review by supervisors and analysis of any outcome.”
As an aside, Durham Constabulary links to this website from their own website’s crime prevention pages.
I’ve only managed to speed read the report, but I did so with the full knowledge that the number of police officers on our streets has reduced by 16% over the past 6 years or so and that police budgets have fallen – a lot!. It is not then surprising that some areas of policing within some police services have failed to come up to the standard expected by the HMIC.
Now, rather than get all depressed about the report, blame Brexit, leave the country or refuse to pay the council tax what positive part can we play to reduce the burdens on our police?
There’s a lot we can do, but chiefly we have to do everything we can to make sure that we do not become a victim of a preventable crime.
There’s a page on my website that provides a list of easily preventable crimes, which I would urge all Neighbourhood Watches to copy and forward to their members. For your convenience here’s that list – it’s long, but by the time you get to the bottom you’ll realise just how much crime we could prevent.
- Leaving stuff on view in the car
- Forgetting to lock the vehicle
- Not properly locking a multi-point locking door, especially at night
- Leaving keys in door locks, especially close to cat-flaps
- Leaving a ground floor front window open when out in the back garden
- Leaving doors and windows open or unlocked when going out
- Not leaving lights on in the home when we go out at night
- Not buying enhanced secured doors and windows when upgrading them
- Having an insecure shed containing tools for the burglar to use on the house
- Not locking the garage, which may have a door directly into the house
- Not chaining up a wheelie bin which could be used to climb over a side gate
- Not locking a side gate
- Not setting the burglar alarm
- Having a security safe and not using it
- Not marking valuables, making it easy for thieves to sell them on
- Opening the door to unexpected callers without checking who’s there first
- Doing business with cold callers at the door and on the phone or online
- Carrying a wallet in a back pocket
- Hanging a handbag on the back of a chair in a pub or cafe
- Showing off the latest smartphone to friends in a busy pub
- Getting into an unlicensed taxi
- Believing something we are told that’s simply too good to be true
- Not trusting our instincts that something isn’t right
Opportunity for crime http://thecrimepreventionwebsite.com/home-security-assessment/736/opportunity-for-crime/
