Intelligent policing for the 21st century

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Intelligent policing for the 21st century

• Cathy Keeler
• Head of Campaigns
• Brake, the road safety charity

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Brake

• Working to
• Stop death and injury on the roads
• Care for people affected by road crashes

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The police

• Key allies in working towards these aims
• Traffic police dedicated to, and passionate
  about, road safety
• FLOs carrying out a vital role, often in
  difficult circumstances

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Intelligent policing?

• Could do better
• Prioritising whats important
• Adequate resources
• Achieving results
• Putting the customer first

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Intelligent policing?

• Prioritising whats important
• Stopping the biggest cause of criminal activity
  causing deaths and injuries to the public
• Adequate resources
• Numbers of officers
• Crash investigations
• Policing powers
• Using available technology
• Achieving results
• Numbers of enforcement checks
• Providing a deterrent to law-breaking
• Putting the customer first
• Ensuring public safety
• Family liaison

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Prioritising whats important

• Stopping the biggest cause of criminal activity
  causing deaths and injuries to the public
• Road death is the biggest killer of 15-19 year
  olds and the second biggest killer of younger
  children
• Road death is the biggest accidental killer of
  all ages
• Road crashes cause half of all deaths of people
  aged 5-39

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Prioritising whats important

• Road deaths are likely to be proven to be a crime
• No official figures collated
• Many forces dont record how many road deaths
  result in prosecution
• Estimate more than 50

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Prioritising whats important

• In England and Wales in 2005
• 2,915 people killed on roads
• 26,357 seriously injured on roads (Road
  Casualties Great Britain 2005, DfT, 2006)
• 713 homicides plus 52 deaths in the London
  bombings (Crime in England and Wales 2005/06, HO,
  2006)
• Four times as many people killed on roads as
  murdered

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Prioritising whats important

• National Policing Plan (first published 2002)
• 1 paragraph on roads policing
• Under reducing concerns about crime section
• Not one of main priorities
• Roads Policing Strategy (first published 2005)
• Still not part of main Policing Plan

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Prioritising whats important

• Brake is calling for
• Roads policing to be added to the four national
  priorities in the National Policing Plan
• Targets to be set for key roads policing
  objectives

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Adequate resources

• Numbers of officers
• Road crash investigations
• Policing powers and enforcement checks
• Using available technology
• (Family liaison)

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Adequate resources - numbers of officers

• Numbers of dedicated road policing officers
  falling
• 9,201 in 1996-7
• 7,636 in 2003-4
• (HMIC quoted in Hansard, written answers,
  10.01.05 Column 364W)

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Adequate resources - numbers of officers

• Percentage drop
• 6.5 in 1990
• 5.8 in 2000
• 5 in 2002
• (Road Traffic Law and Enforcement a driving
  force for casualty reduction, PACTS, 1999)
• (Traffic Law and its Enforcement, Sixteenth
  Report of Session 2003-4, Transport Select
  Committee, House of Commons, 2005)

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Adequate resources investigation

• Road death
• Investigation days
• Road open as soon as possible (hours)
• One or two officers

• Homicide
• Investigation months/ years
• Scene of crime closed for days/ weeks
• Team of officers
• Specialist incident room

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Adequate resources investigation

• Selby rail disaster
• Detailed investigation one of the biggest
  criminal investigations ever undertaken
• Nearly 1,000 officers
• 1,216 statements taken
• 1,962 lines of inquiry pursued, including tracing
  other drivers
• 1,985 exhibits logged
• 3-week examination of vehicle by teams of
  experts, piecing together more than 800 fragments
  to prove no mechanical defect
• Police reconstruction of journey to prove
  speeding
• Examination of phone and internet records to
  prove tired driving (no sleep)

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Adequate resources investigation

• Selby rail disaster
• Depth of investigation decisive factor in
  conviction of Gary Hart for causing death by
  dangerous driving
• Not all fatal crashes need weeks of painstaking
  investigation in order to secure a conviction in
  court
• Need to ensure that dangerous drivers dont get
  away with it, due to under-resourcing of
  investigations

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Adequate resources policing powers

• Random/ targeted enforcement checks
• UK not possible, need reason to stop driver
• EU countries/ Australia/ New Zealand/ South
  Africa able to stop and carry out random/
  targeted checks, e.g. drink-driving

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Adequate resources policing powers

• New Zealand compulsory breath testing enforcement
  campaigns
• theory - some people will still risk drinking
  and driving if they think theres only a random
  chance that they will be tested for alcohol
• test every driver on a particular road, rather
  than pulling out cars at random, or only if they
  are committing a traffic offence
• if a vehicle passes a checkpoint the driver knows
  they will always be stopped and tested
• checkpoints on possible rat-runs
• Also mobile breath tests when officers see poor
  driving and following crashes these are the
  only powers in the UK

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Adequate resources - technology

• Using available technology
• ANPR/ speed camera rollout minority of roads
  covered
• Portable computers with licence-holder
  information ( link-ups to other relevant data)
• Roadside drug tests
• Anecdotal evidence that budgets for equipment and
  training have been slashed

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Adequate resources

• Brake is calling for
• More roads policing officers
• Powers to carry out random and targeted
  enforcement checks
• Adequate resources for training, equipment and
  roll-out of technology

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Achieving results

• Numbers of enforcement checks
• Providing a deterrent to law-breaking
• Getting dangerous drivers off the roads

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Achieving results numbers of checks

• Lack of routine enforcement on our roads
• Driver behaviour
• Speed, drink, drugs, seat belts, mobile phones
• Vehicle roadworthiness
• Tyres, load safety
• Effort at specific times of year Christmas and
  summer drink-drive campaigns, Road Safety Week

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Achieving results numbers of checks

• Compare
• England Wales
• Less than 1 of the population breath tested for
  drink-driving each year
• Levels of drink-driving have been increasing as
  levels of breath-testing has fallen
• New Zealand
• 52 of the population breath tested for
  drink-driving each year

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Achieving results deterrent to law-breaking

• Do police actually provide a deterrent to
  law-breaking?
• YES - Brake surveys reveal
• 37 of drivers think there is only a one in 10
  chance of being caught if they drink and drive
• 53 of drivers say they would take more care on
  the road if there were more traffic police

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Achieving results

• Brake is calling for
• A step-change in levels of enforcement activity
• Police presence on the roads at levels which
  deter potential law-breakers

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Putting the customer first public safety

• Putting the customer first
• Ensuring public safety
• Family liaison

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Putting the customer first public safety

• Ensuring public safety
• Local communities crying out for road safety
  measures including more enforcement
• Fewer and fewer traffic police have time to do
  proactive educational work in schools
• (some volunteer for the FedEx Brake Road Safety
  Academy in their spare time)

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Putting the customer first family liaison

• Road death/ injury - traumatic, violent, sudden,
  unexpected
• Extreme emotional and physical reactions,
  distress need practical help and reassurance
• Vulnerable in shock, suffering traumatic stress
• Unfamiliar procedures - need information (and
  inclusion)
• police, coroner, criminal, civil
• organ/ tissue donation, viewing a body, mortuary,
  post-mortem, funeral, media

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Supporting road crash victims

• What may happen if someone does not receive the
  support they need?
• Exclusion from procedures
• Practical problems become more extreme
• Traumatic grief and stress can develop into PTSD,
  with long-term effects on mental health and
  wellbeing

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Putting the customer first family liaison

• Requirement to support road crash victims,
  appoint FLO
• CJS Code of Practice for Victims of Crime
• ACPO Road Death Investigation Manual
• ACPO Family Liaison Strategy
• Includes handing out the BrakeCare pack and
  signposting support agencies

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Putting the customer first family liaison

• The FLO role is vital, but
• Very few forces provide an FLO in cases of
  serious injury
• Not all forces provide an FLO in cases of road
  death
• In many forces, traffic FLOs are overloaded with
  cases
• Government funding for BrakeCare pack to be
  withdrawn?

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Putting the customer first

• Brake is calling for
• More police engagement with local communities
  about road safety concerns and possible
  enforcement solutions
• A statutory requirement for all forces to
  provide FLOs in cases of road death and serious
  injury

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Whats the cost?

• Value for money
• DfT cost-benefit figures - 1,384,463 per road
  death
• includes 907,698 human costs
• 2,915 road deaths in England and Wales (2005)
  2,645,939,670
• Likely to be under-estimate
• Cost of traumatised people to society?

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Whats the cost?
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• Road Safety Week
• www.roadsafetyweek.org
• Forgotten Victims campaign
• Police our Roads campaign
• www.brake.org.uk
• Thank you!