Saturday, 5 September 2009

FOCUS REPORT : POLICE RESOURCES


The latest report from the crime analysis team at Nice 1 Ltd, looks in some detail at five key areas that affect policing in the UK.

Covering all 43 police forces of England & Wales, the report examines the population figures. force strengths, the proposed force budgets for 2010/2011, recorded offence frequency and counts and detection rates.

To download the full report summary click here or the image above.

The summary brings together for the first time, data from a number of different Home Office reports. With information presented in an at-a-glance format, the reader may quickly see "rankings" by force area, of :-

  • Population size - 1st being the force policing the largest population
  • Available officers - 1st being the force with the largest strength of officers
  • Ratio of officers to population - 1st being the force with highest population per officer
  • Proposed budgets - 1st being the force with the largest budget
  • Cost of budget per head of population - 1st being the force with the highest per person
  • Cost of budget per household - 1st being the force with the highest per household
  • Offence frequency - 1st being the force with the highest offence frequency per 1000 population
  • Offence count - 1st being the force dealing with highest offence count
  • Police detections - 1st being the force with the highest overall detection rate

The report could be examined force by force and detailed observations noted. For brevity here we will highlight just a few that stood out for us :-

Metropolitan : Highest population responsibility, largest number of officers "available", almost the greatest number of officers per head of population, the largest and most expensive budget for the taxpayer, highest offence frequency and count, yet 30th in the table for detections.

Greater Manchester : Similar story here, 3rd largest population, among the highest officer to public ratios, 3rd largest budget, 5th most expensive to the taxpayer, 2nd highest offence frequency and count, yet 35th in the detection league table.

Merseyside : 14th largest population size, 5th largest resource, among highest officer ratio, a top 10 budget force, 10th in the offence frequency and counts, yet they managed a respectable 8th in the detection league.

Northumbria : 13th largest population, 7th highest police resource, 6th best officer to population ratio, 10th highest budget, 11th in cost to the taxpayer, 16th in both offence categories, achieving 4th in the detection rate table.

Clearly each force has its own challenges, with population density, geographic coverage and many more variables that affect the results achieved. Indeed, the Home Office documents from where this information was sourced contain many pages of explanatory notes as to how budgets and officer strength are determined.

The availability of officers is a contraversial area, and it should be noted that the figures reported here are straight lifts from Home Office documents, and do not reflect officers engaged in administrative or strategic planning roles. Whilst counted as available, many work 9-5 shifts and this therefore has a significant impact on the actual numbers of officers available to perform front line duties. Contributions on this subject are welcome.

We would be keen to hear the views of interested readers, police or public to the results.

For those who wish to dig a little deeper, we have included links below to the data reports that sit behind the summary above.

Detailed population vs force strength & ratio report click here

Detailed population vs force budget report click here

Detailed population vs recorded offence report click here

The reports can also be viewed in future from the side bar on the right. (Once this post has been archived).

Future articles will appear from these pages and that of our sister site Car Crime UK, where we will explore further aspects of Home Office and associated authority statistics.

Should you require any further information about the information contained in these reports, please refer to the contact panel at the foot of the page, or e mail us via the link below this article, or click here



The Crime Analysis Team
Nice 1 Ltd

RECENT POLICE ARTICLES


For a brief insight into the pressures and challenges faced by our police officers on the frontline, here is a selection of recent article extracts from real officers at the coal face of British policing. To read the full postings and comments from other officers, click the links to each article.

http://200weeks.police999.com/

Chief Constables are bullies – fact

Apparently the Superintendents’ Association has been doing some research amongst its members & has found that half of senior officers are stressed & depressed.

A quarter of the 800 officers surveyed reported anxiety symptoms as moderate or severe, more than half complained of working 50-60 hour weeks and 40% reported that senior management’s approach to managing performance was “harsh and unhelpful”, and nearly a third said chief constables showed “bullying behaviour”. Others said stress and depression could be triggered by the exposure to traumatic incidents they encountered during their work. Nearly 40% said they did not have enough resources or staff to do the job effectively.

Welcome to the world of policing in modern Britain.

To read the full article & comments click here

Another lost vote

In another case of the tail wagging the dog the law changed recently to allow two lesbian partners to be named on a child’s birth certificate if the birth was as a result of IVF treatment.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 has made it possible for two women to be named on the birth certificate rather than the mother & father.

Clearly designed to magnify the Labour government’s obsession with diversity credentials it means that the birth certificate becomes a work of fiction rather than a legal document recording the parentage of a child. The birth certificate will no longer record the genetic heritage of a child but the names of a couple who happen to call themselves parents at that specific moment in time. When a marriage or parnership between a mother & father breaks up those two individuals are still the mother & father. When a lesbian civil partnership breaks up at least one half has precisely zero genetic connection to the child.

To read the full article & comments click here

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http://disgruntledcop.blogspot.com/

ACPO support long sentances...

Having read this article it doesn't surprise me one bit that ACPO are spouting incomprehensible rubbish.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1196987/Inexcusable-gobbledygook--Verdict-102-word-sentence-drafted-police-chiefs.html

The sentence in question is this:

'The promise of reform which the Green Paper heralds holds much for the public and Service alike; local policing, customised to local need with authentic answerability, strengthened accountabilities at force level through reforms to police authorities and HMIC, performance management at the service of localities with targets and plans tailored to local needs, the end of centrally-engineered one size fits all initiatives, an intelligent approach to cutting red tape through redesign of processes and cultures, a renewed emphasis on strategic development so as to better equip our service to meet the amorphous challenges of managing cross force harms, risks and opportunities.'

Anyone care to translate??

To read the full article & comments click here

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http://pcbloggs.blogspot.com/

Just One Crime

Apparently 1000 of London's CCTV cameras solved only one crime last year.This statistic amazes me. CCTV is pretty much a requisite of any prosecution in Blandmore whatsoever, regardless of the offence. You need only mention to the crown prosecutor to whom you are "selling" your case that the CCTV in a shop/street/dwelling was down/out/non-existent, to see a great sigh appear on their face and a big red pen cross out your hope of a conviction.

To read the full article & comments click here


Victim vs Customer

I've moaned a bit about victim focus recently. Mainly because the Senior Management have been moaning about it, and they tend to delete my email diatribes without responding - whereas they can't delete this without some serious effort and court injunctions.The problem is that whenever frontline police officers moan about Victim Focus, it sounds like we hate victims and want them to die.The truth is, we moan because the language of the government and Senior Management team assumes that the majority of our 'customers' are the same thing as 'victims'. They aren't. Victims of 'volume' crime* are generally bog standard, middle/low income, hardworking taxpayers. For these people, being burgled, having their car broken into, God forbid being mugged or having their kids being beaten up at school, are jaw-aching, heart-crushing blows in their already precarious uphill struggle of life. The chances of getting satisfaction over their burglar/thief/mugger/bully are virtually nil.

To read the full article & comments click here

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http://inspectorgadget.wordpress.com/


What Really Matters At The Top

September 3, 2009 by inspectorgadget

I want senior police officers to read this and think about it. Not just curl their lips with derision, or excuse it all as nonsense, but to really think deeply. If they still can.

On Tuesday morning (before I went to bed) after a bank holiday weekend of unbelievable overstretch and under resource, I wrote a quick list of what we had achieved over the period on my Response Team.

1. We saved one life (elderly person trapped behind closed doors on death’s door, rescued by a double crew who booted the door).

To read the full article & comments click here


Is There Anybody Out There?

August 21, 2009 by inspectorgadget

Because we use your money to run our huge, top-heavy and mainly incompetent organisation; you have the right to know how things are working in Ruralshire this summer. And how things work every summer, and every Christmas.

To read the full article & comments click here

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Sergeant Simon http://policelockerroom.blogspot.com/2009/08/back-to-basics.html

Back to basics

Was being sociable the other day and was chatting to some people I had just met. Conversations as they often do turned to work and what I do.I explained where I work, being a response team monkey somewhere in a suburb. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised at their surprise when I said just how many police officers there were at any one time. It made me think for the unitiated i.e. those probably not reading this (never mind) there is a spectacular gulf between perceptions of police numbers and the reality of those on the streets who turn up when you call 999.

To read the full article & comments click here

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http://thebluelightrun.blogspot.com/


Time to go code 11?

As a result of the recent nightjack ruling, I was asked by an american twitter friend of mine whether I would be blogging about how I felt about the ruling. At first I wasn't that keen, the judgement has sent a shockwave of fear amongst police bloggers and my initial reaction was to shut up shop. I initially resisted as I wanted to see how others felt first. I have seen a number of fellow bloggers out there walking away from what they love doing. Metcountymounty, The Plastic Fuzz, etc. Sad times, an indictment of how very expensive freedom of speech has become.

To read the full article & comments click here

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http://twining.wordpress.com/

Memorandum of understandings – what a load of….

Preconceived racially stereotypical organisational perceptions of the Black Police Association movement, (e.g born again 1960’s, anti racist, left wing agitating and loony, radical, badly behaving group), exist amongst many within the Police establishment. In fact the term “tiddly winks” to describe the organisational antics of some BPA’s is not unheard of. That some BPA’s are ineffective is another proper view, but then what is ineffective?

To read the full article & comments click here


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http://michaelpinkstone.wordpress.com/


Echoes of Bulger

Two brothers (aged 10 and 11 at the time of the offence) have pleaded guilty to inflicting grievous bodily harm with intent on two other boys aged 9 and 11.

The attack involved acts of torture, sexual incitement and threats to kill.
It would be difficult not to draw parallels with the murder of James Bulger in 1993 – news that horrified a country and forever permeated the national consciousness.

To read the full article & comments click here

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A NOTE FROM THE CRIME ANALYSIS TEAM :

Through these pages, we will provide collective information to raise public awareness of the plight of our British Bobby at the frontline of problems within our society.

Much of the detail will shock you.

So much of what really faces these Officers is thinly disguised in Government headlines about falling crime, increased resources and carefully selected statistics.

Not all of conclusions drawn from statistics are accurate. Many have a political "spin". Adminsitrative detections are one such example that we will explore in later posts.

Millions of pounds of taxpayers money is spent on strategic committees, civil liberties work groups, performance targeting and flavour of the month projects. Well intended though some of these activities are, they detract from the real issue : providing frontline officers with the resources they truly need to help improve the quality of our environment.

Front line officers are fed up with fiddled crime figures, mountains of paperwork that keep them tied up at the station and buried in bureaucracy. Senior police officers are placed under unreasonable pressure to meet bogus Home Office performance targets and dubious procedural compliance obligations. This pressure descends downwards, back to the Inspectors, Sergeants & Constables who find it increasingly difficult to simply "get the job done".

With statistical analysis reports and real life experiences, we will provide you with the real picture of crime and policing in the UK.

There have been many instances of well intended police officers being pressured into silence about the true condition of our country. If the law abiding, honest tax payer, sick of criminals ruling our streets, knew the full story, more pressure could be applied for the authorities to sit up and listen to what the public wants, and make the changes that are now urgently required.

We have no desire to become a mere "talking shop" about these issues. They are of major importance and most definately in the public interest. A period of information and data gathering (including the valuable opinion of the public) will be required. At such time as is appropriate, the information gathered will serve as one of the instruments of change.

If you are concerned about the crime and policing in the UK, please comment on these pages or feel free to contact us. (Details below).

Bookmark this site from your preferred links in the right hand panel, so that you will receive updates and articles as they are produced.

With Kind Regards

The Crime Analysis Team
Nice 1 Ltd

Friday, 4 September 2009

COPPER BLOG UPDATE


For anyone wondering what has happened to the "Coppers Blog" produced by PC David Copperfield (Stu Davidson), reprinted below is an article released today by Dan Hill from Monday Books.

Coppersblog - It's Not Another Nightjack

We've been emailed and telephoned by a number of people about the closure of Coppersblog.

It had come as a surprise to me - although Stuart is a good friend, we're not in daily contact - so I spoke to him briefly last night.For those who are concerned for him, don't be - he's fine. There's nothing sinister about it, he's just thinking about how and whether he wants to continue the blog and, in the meantime, has taken it off line. He may well be back.

Stuart started The Policeman's Blog in 2003 (the archive only goes back to 2005, but that's because he lost it when he took it down temporarily once before).That's a long time for anyone to keep writing, especially when conditions - personal and geographical - have changed so much.

It may be that he's said all he wants to say; certainly, Inspector Gadget is more relevant to the modern British reader now than Copperfield (Gadget's latest post is a cracker; I don't remember Stephen Fry starting a twitter campaign about the NHS when those 400 deaths were revealed.).

It wouldn't be right to finish the post without inviting you to buy Stuart's book, but if you're feeling the pinch here's a free extract.

Posted by Dan
Posted by News from Monday Books at 11:44

To visit the Monday Books blog click this link http://mondaybooks.blogspot.com/

The Monday Books website is at http://mondaybooks.com/

For the time being therefore, the link to David Copperfields site in the Police Blogs section will not reach the pages.

Kind Regards


Crime Analyst
Nice 1 Limited

CA Comment : We would concur with Dans' comments about Inspector Gadgets latest blog article, well worth a read! To read it now click here

Thursday, 3 September 2009

OUR APOLOGIES TO 200 WEEKS BLOG



On behalf of the team at Nice 1 Ltd, I would like to take this opportunity to apologise openly to the author of the police blog "200 weeks".

When adding the valued police links to our three consumer sites ttp://carcrimeuk.blogspot.com
http://theftprotect.blogspot.com/ and this site http://thinbluelineuk.blogspot.com/ , we added 200 to the first two, but inadvertently omitted to add the link to the Thin Blue Line.

This was a genuine oversight on my part, totally down to me I'm afraid, and the 200 link is now in its place in the police blog links to the right. I would recommend every reader to visit the 200 site.

An extract from the 200 site is reprinted below from the authors "About Me" section :-

August 2005

I’m just a regular police officer who has dedicated his entire working life to the police service and the public of the area I serve.

I’ve spent my entire service ‘in the trenches’ as a front-line officer. I’ve never gone for promotion preferring to spend my time dealing with the stuff I enjoy; wearing a blue suit & driving fast cars*!

I’ve got under 200 weeks to go before I retire. Although I love the elements of the job I joined for almost 30 years ago, the other stuff just makes we wish my retirement was closer. I can’t wait ’til the day I can say “I’m outta here”.

To see what the author is doing now, click here

Once again, many apologies to 200 for the oversight!

Kind Regards

Steve

Crime Analyst
Nice 1 Limited




Tuesday, 1 September 2009

IS THE THIN BLUE LINE GETTING THICKER??

Police numbers at a record high?? REALLY??

Police numbers have hit a record high in England and Wales, according to the latest figures released by the Home Office.


The annual police service strength statistics (new window) show that the number of police officers has increased by 1,921 since March last year.

This is a rise of 1.4% and brings the total number of officers to 142,151.
Home Secretary Alan Johnson said that the figures are ‘encouraging,’ but said that the fight against crime is 'not just a numbers game.'

'What matters most is that the workforce delivers the best possible service to the public.

'Chief constables have more power than ever before to ensure they focus their resources on what matters to local people and what affects their communities.'

The figures also show that women represent 27% of rank and file officers.

There are now 6,290 black and minority ethnic police officers, which is an increase of 497 in the last year.


Source : http://police.homeoffice.gov.uk/

WHAT THE REPORT DOESN'T SAY . . . . . . .

  • How many officers are actually ON THE STREET doing the real job at the sticky end?
  • How many are tied up in desk jobs and not available for front line duties?
  • Will the Home Office bureaucracy plan release any office staff for real policing?
  • Will busy town centres remain under policed when cover is needed most?
  • How many "On The Street" hours are actually achieved BY force area?
  • Is that the majority of forces have now had their recruitment budgets FROZEN
To quote Alan Johnson:
'What matters most is that the workforce delivers the best possible service to the public. Chief constables have more power than ever before to ensure they focus their resources on what matters to local people and what affects their communities.'
If only the members of the public and the officers on the front line could be given some confidence that there was light at the end of the tunnel.
There are more officers tied up in committees, strategy planning and statistical fudgery than dealing with crime and related matters on the street. All because politicians and civil servants play too significant a role in policing this country.
Policing at a local level, with local accountability is essential if real improvement is to be witnessed.
The timing of this report, concurrent with the release of crime statistics announcing further reductions in crime do not give rise for confidence.
Reports from the frontline (and we will provide detail in future posts) suggest that the crime statistics are manufactured with political pressure.
Why should we then place any creedance on a report bragging about police strength being at an all time high, when the frontline feedback is that police manpower where it's needed, is woefully inadequate?
LET'S HAVE SOME TRANSPARENCY FOR ONCE MR JOHNSON!!
  • Tell us about the admistrative detection rates that skew the crime figures in your favour . .
  • Tell us about the holding back of crime reporting to reflect lower annual crime rates . . . .
  • Tell us the real policing numbers of officers actually on the street, by man hours please . . .
  • Tell us how many hours officers are tied to the nick dealing with paperwork . . . . .
  • Tell us what difference 1921 new officers will make in the scheme of things . . . . . .
According to frontline sources, you already have enough officers. That isn't in question. It is how those officers are deployed and at what critical times, for crime prevention and detection... That is what the public and the overworked front liners want to know.
Go on tell us ! If you dare.
With Kind Regards
The Crime Analyst Team
Nice 1 Limited

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