The new fight against crime

THE welcome fall in Yorkshire’s crime rate offers no room for complacency, even though this downward trend would suggest that the recession had a negligible impact on rates of offending.

Yet the Government’s self-congratulation masks the fact that the British Crime Survey’s data covered a timespan which precedes the wide-ranging cuts now being imposed by Ministers.

The more pertinent calculation will be in a year’s time – and whether the police have been able to meet the public’s expectation of lower crime, and safer streets, with considerably fewer resources.

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Although Policing Minister Nick Herbert predicts that this will be the case, Meredydd Hughes, the Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police, disagrees and has warned that his officers will struggle to prioritise local trends.

Nevertheless, it does not augur well that Mr Herbert has commissioned an independent review of crime statistics. This suggests that he, like his predecessors, is prepared to move the goal-posts in order that comparisons cannot be made so readily for political and other reasons.

That said, there are two other fundamental reasons why the public are right to be sceptical about the coalition’s approach.

Firstly, the Ministerial obsession with protecting “front line” jobs invariably trivialises the contribution of their colleagues who work behind the scenes, or who are non-uniformed officers helping work with the increased number of sexual-abuse victims having the confidence to come forward.

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Secondly, the flawed notion of elected police commissioners, supposedly to increase public accountability, detracts from the fact that the key to crime-fighting – as Blair Gibbs argues on the opposite page – is the leadership skills of senior officers and their ability to interpret the latest data at their disposal.

Yorkshire is fortunate to have four chief constables who offer leadership – and who are working collaboratively to save money. They are also adept at using the latest crime analysis techniques.

Nevertheless, the next year will prove whether the Government was right to seek efficiency savings on the scale envisaged – or if this was an act of political naivety that compromises the fight against crime. The stakes are that high.