Agenda item

The Neighbourhood Police Team will be available to talk about the issues in your area.

The Safer Neighbourhood Team includes an Area Inspector, an Area Sergeant, a Ward Manager, another Police Constable a team of 6 PCSOs.

Over the last three months the figures were as follows;

Violent crime – 15% decrease

Burglary – 63% down on the same time last year

Theft – 6% down

Auto crime – 2% down

Criminal damage – 26% down.

A problem solving panel has been set up to address anti-social behaviour issues in Rawcliffe. Members of the panel are Rawcliffe Parish Council, the city of York Council and Safer York Partnership. The action plan proposals include concentrated patrols in problem areas with up to 75% of the team walking through it regularly. Unfortunately when the team is not on duty response times may be longer due to the fact that officers have to come form Fulford. Calls about anti-social behaviour have gone down from 25 to 18 in Rawcliffe Grange. Over the whole ward calls have gone to 90. Levels of anti-social behaviour in certain areas is weather-related.

Commercial burglary is happening on Clifton Moor. There are a few strategies to reduce crime, these include, Operation Abyss to reduce burglary, Clifton Moor Business Watch, and Smart Water schemes in certain areas and for repeat victims.

There is a new piece of legislation – Section 27 of the Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006. This means an officer can issue a direction to leave an area to anyone over 16 if the officer believes there is a risk of anti-social behaviour. This can last up to 48 hours. If the person returns to the area they can get a fine of up to £2,000.

The times are changing and the way policing is organised is also changing. The Safer Neighbourhood Team wants to find out from residents what they think the police priorities should be. The following were mentioned during consultation along with the votes they got from residents;

1. Domestic burglary                                                                      1
2. Use of mobiles phones whilst driving                        0
3. Speeding                                                                               2
4. Push bikes with no lights                                                   0
5. Push bikes on pavements                                                     0
6. Anti-social behaviour                                                       9
7. A quicker response to calls                                                    3
8. Under-age drinking – public places/nuisance                  3
9. Illegal vehicles –no tax/no insurance/no licence                      0
10. Drugs – using/dealing                                                          1

This information is going to be taken away to produce the priorities for the area concentrating on anti-social behaviour, a quicker response and under-age drinking.

A question was raised about a report in Parliament about the number of forms completed every time stop and search was used. The answer was that there was quite a lot of paperwork and that if an officer stopped a group of 30 children they would have to complete 30 forms.

A question about the response time was asked. The police would love to have the resources to respond rapidly to everything but Skelton, Rawcliffe and Clifton Without is a large ward. Also there are 15 officers each shift to cover the whole city – if there is a major incident the whole shift might have to attend.

This item finished with residents and Ian Richardson discussing the numbers of officers on the whole force.