Crime Action Plan

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Crime Action Plan
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Crime has always been a problem. Ever since law
existed there was crime. This presentation is
designed to give members of the public the simple
facts about crime in an easy to understand
manner. Hopefully you will be more enlightened
about crime and the police force by the end of
this presentation.
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The following graph, on crime in Staffordshire,
was produced using data from 30 random newspaper
articles about crime. These all happened about
two or three weeks ago.
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Crime in Staffordshire
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In this graph, the most predominant crimes are
Vehicle theft, criminal damage and bodily
harm. The lowest are drugs offences and
robbery. But to effectively and efficiently
combat crime we must ask why this is. Is it
perhaps because of the way the police force is
deployed? Or is it just down to chance that
criminals committed these crimes? Here is the
graph again.
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Crime action plan
Unfortunately, Staffordshire police have limited
resources and officers with which to combat
crime. But reviewing the way we do this could
help to combat crime levels. The biggest crime in
Staffordshire is Vehicle theft. Police have ways
of dealing with this such as decoy cars, patrols
and advertisements telling motorists to lock
their cars. Perhaps to be more effective a
different approach is needed? We plan to move
more officers into preventing vehicle crime,
patrolling in the worst affected areas, and
upgrade CCTV systems in car parks and public
places across the area.
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• Other strategies to combat crimes will include
• Crack downs on young offenders, data shows most
  burglaries are carried out by people under the
  age of 20.
• This will include ASBO enforcements (Anti Social
  Behavioural Orders) and help lines.
• One of the most obvious ways to combat crime is
  to increase numbers in the police force. A new
  recruiting drive will begin shortly to appeal to
  a wider age group.
• Public awareness of crime, especially burglary
  and fraud will be increased greatly by television
  advertisements, posters and police showcases, all
  of which should help people become more vigilant
  about crime and how to protect themselves from it

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Knife crime
Recently, the news has focused intently upon
knife crime and the problems of carrying a knife.
The recent knife amnesty, allowing people to hand
in their knives with no questions asked, worked
better than expected.
Though the real knife criminals will not give up
their knives, so other methods are needed
here. The first is to tighten the rules on who
can legally purchase a knife. Almost half of
shops tested broke the law and sold a knife to
people under the age of 16.
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The Home Office reports that 2,559 were convicted
of carrying a knife in 1995, but that number rose
to 3,570 in 2000, according to the Home Office.
This increase has been taking place ever since,
and knife crime in the UK is nearly five times
worse than gun crime.
There is an official law that bans carrying a
knife in public with a blade over three inches in
length. To combat knife crime in North Staffs, we
are hoping to increase our knife awareness
programme, demonstrating what they can do.
Most stabbings are started by violence anyway,
mainly between rival gangs. Hotspots of activity
will we watched closely by our officers, and
tougher security cameras will be
installed. Staffordshire police also hopes to
arrange another knife amnesty day, as while media
focus has been on gun crime for a long while,
knives have been underestimated, and we need to
change that, and stop this situation from
spiralling out of control.