FREE UK CRIME MAPPING TOOL

Would you like to know what the current crime level is in your area?

The Crime Analysis Team at Nice 1 Limited are delighted to be share with you, a facility to search the current crime statistics for any of the 43 police force areas of Englnd & Wales.

Click here to connect through to the site housed at the Telegraph newspaper. The link will take you to an interactive map, where you can click the police force area where you would like information. 30 of the forces subscribe to "Crime Mapper" which is a simple crime mapping facility. You will be able to drill down to small areas and see the most recent incident and frequency rates for burglary, robbery, car crime, violence and anti social behaviour.

The sites report whether the areas selected have recently experienced high, above average, average, below average or low levels of crime for the selected offences.

To visit the force mapping sites click a link below :-

Metropolitan
West Midlands
Greater Manchester
West Yorkshire
Merseyside
Thames Valley
Northumbria
Hampshire
Kent
Lancashire
Devon & Cornwall
Avon & Somerset
South Wales
South Yorkshire
Essex
Sussex
Nottinghamshire
West Mercia
Leicestershire
Staffordshire
Humberside
Cheshire
Hertfordshire
Derbyshire
Surrey
Durham
Cleveland
North Wales
North Yorkshire
Norfolk
Dorset
Gwent
Cambridgeshire
Suffolk
Gloucestershire
Northamptonshire
Cumbria
Lincolnshire
Bedfordshire
Wiltshire
Dyfed-Powys
Warwickshire
City of London

At the time of posting this article, some of the sites are having work completed, so a few of the links may not work until the work is complete.

COMMENT

Whilst the information contained on the force sites is a useful guide, it represents only the matters reported to the police and recorded as crime. The Home Office British Crime Survey, which is seen as a more accurate reflection of total crime, reports that crime figures are over double those reported.

So whilst the crime statistics recorded on police force site are a guide, they are not the complete picture, nor do they represent an exhaustive record of crime that occurs. Future posts from these pages will highlight the disparity between the two sets of figures.

It should be noted that the larger police force areas of London, Birmingham, Manchester and Thames Valley, have chosen to use their own crime mapping software. This in itself, obstructs the access of nationwide up-to-date information in identical format. A cynical observation might reflect that this is a means of obscuring the true picture of crime in England & Wales. These forces account for a large percentage of the population and overall crime, so the lack of current data in the same format, thwarts efforts to arrive at the current national position.

Only when all 43 forces operate the same software, will a greater degree of transparency for public consumption will be available.

The Crime Analysis Team
Nice 1 Limited

OFFICER SPEAKS OUT ABOUT LOW POLICE MORALE

LOW morale, not enough officers and a failing justice system are among the sentiments of rank and file police, a serving officer said today.The experienced officer did not want to be named, but spoke out amid a backdrop of crushing financial pressure from the government for the constabulary to slash millions of pounds from its budget. 

The modern police service faces many more challenges to its morale than ever before and many of the matters talked of here echo the sentiment of other articles from these pages. If the escalating problem of low police morale is the effect, what are the causes? 

Behind the scenes at this site, we are compiling hundreds of examples of officers voicing the same concerns about the decline of the service they love. The problem is not confined to a few disillusioned officers in small pockets of the country. This is a growing problem across all police forces in the UK, from an ever increasing number of rank and file frontline troops.

The balanced observations of one front line officer sum it up well. 

A POLICE OFFICERS VIEW FROM THE STREET

“I still love the job as much as I did when I first joined, but things have changed and not necessarily for the better. We see many times in the course of our careers all that is wrong with society and how inhuman people can be. Often a smile or joke can be a release valve. It seems more and more that we are not allowed an opinion or a sense of humour.

One thing that I have noticed more than anything is morale. I have never seen it so low. I talk to officers with five to six years service counting down the time they have left and that should not be.

My opinion for it being so low is down to a number of things; staff shortages, excessive workloads, a feeling of being let down by a seemingly uncaring senior hierarchy, the inability of the service in general to stand up for itself, and being let down by the judicial system.

I can say hand on heart that the vast majority of officers I have worked with over many years have been professional, caring, keen, and take great delight in locking up the bad guys.

On staff shortages, if you read the headlines from certain quarters they say we have no staff shortage problems. If the general public really knew that almost on a weekly basis and in some case daily, major towns have no officers to deploy to incidents as they are tied up on jobs or stuck in the custody areas.

It is not uncommon for officers to be drafted in from other areas leaving them short of cover, with specialist departments being used to backfill. Custody is regularly filled so that detained persons are taken to other stations. If this is the case then two officers are sent for escort and booking in.

Then the amount of time the booking in process takes, and then if that person is deemed as at risk he/she is put under constant supervision with a police officer. That means yet another officer down. You don't have to be brilliant at maths to see what the consequences are especially when I have known up to three constants on the go at the same time.

Officers who take crime reports are then allocated them to investigate. Obviously the more serious and involved are taken up by CID. As you can imagine an officer is not just given a couple to sort out but the list can be quite extensive.

The problem is that the list will continue to grow as more and more are allocated to that officer. With all the best will and dedication in the world some are not going to be investigated perhaps as fully as they could be.

This is not because the officer does not care. With time restraints and supervisory pressure, workloads must be trimmed. And I think you can guess the consequences.

The fact that a lot of offenders do not go to court is not down to the individual investigating officer or the service. It is down to the government department charged with prosecuting of suspects at court. They too have pressure to increase their conviction rates, so if they are not satisfied that there is a more than good possibility of a conviction they drop it straight away.

This is despite all the paperwork submitted, numerous interviews, and sometimes compelling evidence in the officers' eyes - and, most important of all, the expectations of the victim.

It does seem to be that before long they will only take on the guilty pleas.

Do I feel that we at times let the victim down? Yes. But we are not entirely to blame, the system is. I believe the system is squarely on the side of the offender rather than the victim. The younger and persistent offenders I come into contact with have no fear of the system or its punishments.

They look on young offenders' institutions as a holiday camp where they get free food, free games, free gym membership and are even allowed to keep together with their friends. They do what ever they like, when they like.

As police officers we are paid a good wage, and I for one have enjoyed every minute of it. I love my job and the satisfaction of getting a good result for the people who we serve. I feel the senior hierarchy needs to back us more and listen, not just preach. Yes, like all organisations or firms money is tight and cuts and financial savings have to be made, but not at the expense of the officers on the beat who are the backbone of the service and the ones getting the flak day after day on the streets.

We are the ones that have to face the job and all it entails face on and not from the comfort of a desk.”

Source : http://www.eveningstar.co.uk/

To read the full article, comments from his Chief Constable and Crown Prosecution Service click here.

COMMENT

Critical areas of police service policy and procedure is not only affecting officers morale. Many of the problems highlighted here are having a severly detrimental effect on public confidence in the police as a whole. Regrettably, the front line bobby is the thin blue line where the public aim their dissatisfaction. The target should really be the politicians and senior officers who set the policy these officers have to work with.

The general public want to see a more visible police presence, improved response times and common sense policing. Despite protestations from the Government to the contrary, there remains an excessive "performance culture" within the job. Combined with a lack of discretionary policing this has resulted in a service that is more consumed with political correctness and meeting statistical targets than the 'back to basics policing' the public and front line officers would like to see.

A disproportionate amount of time and resource is wasted on issues that affect a minority of the public. Meanwhile, the Government and senior officers perpetuate the the 'con' about declining crime figures and rising public confidence. The general public are not stupid. They are not taken in by statistics that are manipulated for the media or surveys that are not representative of the real public view.

The time for transparency is now. Clear the decks. Accept that the service has become swamped with bureaucracy and the quality of our society needs fixing fast if the country is not to slip into irreversible moral decline.

This will not happen within the time left with this Government. It seem likely that another party will be in power before any significant change will be seen. Will they be any different? For as long as politicians keep using crime and policing as a convenient political football to grow their overstaffed and excessive empires, then the answer is no.

A radical, honest and transparent approach is needed if public and police confidence is to be restored.

Acceptance that a system is not working is a first step. Forget blame, we don't care what or who caused it, we just want it fixed. Learn the lessons that are staring us in the face. Dismiss the performance culture policing, listen, HEAR and ACT upon what the front line coppers are telling us is inherently wrong with the service. Make every effort to eliminate committees and projects that detract from basics. Reverse the trend of spending 90% of the time and resource planning how you will improve things and 10% of  the time actually doing it. Stop giving us statistics and headlines we stopped trusting long ago. Give the police their dicretional common sense freedom that will enable them to do the job they joined for.

Are there any politicians and senior officers courageous enough to take the action needed? 


Crime Analysis Team
Nice 1 Limited

THE SPOILED YOUNGER GENERATION IS SPOILING OUR SOCIETY

Dr Aric Sigman

Thanks to http://200weeks.police999.com/ for inspiring this post.

In a book published this week called "The Spoiled Generation" psychologist Dr Aric Sigman explores the erosion of discipline, respect and civility in the youth of the UK and the negaive effect it is having on society.

Dr Sigman accurately captures the growing sense of unease felt by a large percentage of the UK public. He said “Children of the spoilt generation are used to having their demands met by their parents and others in authority, and that in turn makes them unprepared for the realities of adult life. This has consequences in every area of society, from the classroom to the workplace, the streets to the criminal courts and rehabilitation clinics".

He suggests that children & young people’s rights must be curtailed and a firm hand is urgently needed if they are to be properly guided into adulthood.

Dr Sigman, a fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, continued: “Authority is a basic health requirement in children’s lives. But, while children have become increasingly ‘empowered’ in terms of legislation and rights, far from being protected, they are actually suffering in ways that could never have been foreseen.”

The police see the consequences of the "Spoiled Generation" every day on the street of the UK. - Britain now has the highest rates of child depression, child-on-child murder, underage pregnancy, obesity, violent and anti-social behaviour and pre-teen alcoholism since records began. A 44% rise in assaults on police by children is surely a symptom of a much greater disease that will follow if not treated fast.

Respect for law and order and authority is fading rapidly as parents and schools fail in their duty to their children. The criminal justice system including the police are then just one of the groups of agencies that deal with the fall out. The empowering of children, however well intended, has served to undermine the authority of parents, teachers, police officers and other authority figures.

If the Government are to start the task of fixing our society, then surely there is no better place to start than  here. By instilling some firm handed forgotten disciplines within the "spoiled sector" of our youth, there will at least be a glimmer of hope that the UK may once again be a pleasant place to live.   

If it is down to our politicians to start the ball rolling, we'll not hold our breath.

Crime Analysis Team
Nice 1 Limited

POLICE FEDERATION DECLARES PCSO's ARE A "CON"

Article reprinted from http://www.esnews.co.uk/ Emergency Services News, a great site that delivers what it says. A link to the regular news articles from E S News now appears in the side bar on this site.

The public are being conned through the use of Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) in a failed government ‘experiment’, according to the Police Federation.

Paul McKeever, chairman of the federation, said: “They were brought in for best of reasons…but I think it was a deeply flawed experiment.”

He also said that the hundreds of millions spent on the scheme could have paid for 12,000 extra police officers.

“If you are, in effect, conning the public by putting people in uniform who the public believe have powers they don’t possess, why are we employing them?”

McKeever made the comments during in interview with Channel Four’s ‘Dispatches’ programme, due to air tonight at 8pm.

Crime Analyst Team
Nice 1 Limited

RAPE NUMBERS SUPPRESSED BY POLICE RECORDING PROCESS

Yet another example of how crime statistics are distorted for immoral purposes is highlighted in a report from the BBC.

The article states that the BBC have learned that rape claims are being left off official crime records. A freedom of information request has revealed that some UK police forces fail to record more than 40% of cases.

Police rules of guidance for rape state that only allegations verified as false, reported to the wrong force, or recorded in error can be removed.

Wide regional variations are reflected but some forces had such a high number of cases removed from records - known as "no-criming" - that critics say it is evident the rules are not being properly applied.

The article goes on to reveal that there are hundreds of instances where rapes are reported but never make it into the Home Office figures. This doesn't even take into account incidents that were reported and subsequently "no-crimed".

This is a further, more serious example of  example of how police procedures and the ridiculous race for detections and performance targeting obstruct the frontline officer from fulfilling their function as effectively as they would want, with the knock on effect of frustrating the ends of justice for the true victims.

False Allegations

There are instances where false allegations are made for whatever reason. A relationship goes wrong and the woman regrets having sex with a man and makes the allegation, after a few drinks a woman has sex with a man then fearing the consequences of discovery by her partner, reports the matter as rape to cover her tracks. The police have an extremely difficult task in getting to the truth of these allegations but there are skilled and trusted officers who are eminently capable of doing so. Rape is one allegation that is said to be "difficult to prove and even more difficult to disprove", so a great degree of care, sensitvity and diligence is required to arrive at the facts.

Of the rape cases that are reported, a meagre 6.5% are detected. Home Office and police information suggests that only 2% of cases are found to be false. If offences are being concealed or suppressed in this way, it disguises the enormity and sevirity of the real problem.

RAPE IS TRIVIALISED

The issue that is of great concern here is that the police crime reporting process is used as yet another means to suppress the real undetected crime picture in the UK. Any commitment and endeavour of the investigating officers is tainted by the subsequent failure to record the offence accurately when the offence is misrepresented or simply not recorded.

The police guidelines for recording crime centre around "Victim Focus". If a crime is reported, the victim has grounds to believe a crime has occurred and there is no quality evidence to suggest otherwise, the police are required to record the matter as a crime. This applies regardless of the offence, burglary, theft, wounding, fraud or sexual offences including rape. If someone breaks into your house and steals your property, it is reported as a burglary. That crime stands on the books whether the offender is caught and a detection is achieved or not. If the suspect is arrested, charged and for whatever reason a conviction is not achieved, the crime of burglary remains as a recorded crime. How can it be then, that if a woman is raped, and there is no quality evidence to suggest it is a false allegation, that the incident can be so easily wiped off the books?

There is something seriously wrong with the moral compass of the policy of a force that encourages or permits this to happen.

POLICE ATTITUDES

It is easy to make the mistake of generalising police attitudes. The cases that attract the media attention are those where officers displayed  a less than sympathetic or even dismissive attitude toward the victim. One of the best writers on this subject is a police blogger, writing under a pseudonym of WPC Ellie Bloggs. Read some of her articles on the subject by clicking here. "Ellie" is both a woman and a serving police officer, with a balanced view of the problem and her views make for informed reading on the subject.

The distortion of the recording of rape crimes is a despicable use of the process for statistical benefit and needs revision urgently. As we have seen in other articles from these pages, rape is not the only crime that is misreported or mis-allocated for the sole purpose of projecting a better image of policing and detections. It is however, one of the examples with far more serious implications and consequences to justice being delivered and restoring public confidence.

Far better that a crime is reported, whatever its category, and the public are made aware of the real resource needs of the police service to deal with the problem, than using statistics as a political football so that the latest crime reduction headlines can be so blithly reported. Once the true picture is revealed, the correct degree of resource and expertise can be applied to deal with it. Until that time, the UK public will continue to be short changed and conned, both in terms of the millions paid in tax and the justice it deserves.