Why the police need civilian staff as well as officers to tackle crime - Dr Alan Billings ​​​​

This year the VRU areas were given funding by the government to tackle serious violence more intensively. It’s called GRIP funding and starts with the identification of those places where most violent crimes happen.

In our county, force analysts have discovered that 50 per cent of all (non-domestic) violent crime that takes place in a public space happens in fewer than 2 per cent of places. From this, 60 violence hot spots have been singled out for particular focus.

One of the things the police have then been doing with GRIP funding is regular patrolling on foot in 30 different hot spots each day. Behind this lies a theory of patrolling that has been tried and tested elsewhere – so it is evidence based.

What the evidence shows, and what the police are doing here, is to patrol regularly in high visibility jackets for between 15 and 20 minute periods at different times each day between 3pm and 12pm in the hot spots. The main point of the patrolling is to be seen.

It seems as if this 15-20 minute patrol is enough to send a powerful message around a community that the police are present and can suddenly appear at any time.

That is the deterrent effect that leads to a suppression of crime and anti-social behaviour (ASB).

Interestingly, the evidence is that this 15-20 minute period is all that is needed. Patrolling for longer makes no additional difference. The patrolling leads to a fall in crimes other than violence and in a wider area than the one being patrolled. So far GRIP has enabled 750 hours of additional high visibility patrolling this year.

As the officers make their way round the identified area, they deal with any crime and ASB they come across – breaking up fights, arresting wanted people, stopping and searching, and so on.

The fear I had was that while this might suppress crime and ASB in the area patrolled, it might simply displace it elsewhere. This does not seem to happen.

The reason the police analysts can be sure that falls in crime/ASB are the result of the patrols is because each officer is equipped with a GPS tracker. The exact route and time the officers take within the prescribed area can be monitored and correlated with statistics for crime/ASB from that area.

We need this information to be sure that the patrols really are effective.

GRIP funding should be available over three years so that by the end of it we shall have a great deal of good evidence about what works and how well. It is all being evaluated by university researchers.

This is just one further example of why, whenever we think about police officer numbers, we must also think about the police staff who are needed to do the analytical work and crunch the numbers – as well as those in call centres, custody suites, HR, IT, finance, and so on.

If ‘eye-watering’ cuts are coming to public spending – Jeremy Hunt’s warning – police forces will have to reduce civilian staff while maintaining police officer numbers. This is because, so far, the government has not shifted from its 2019 election commitment to increase officer numbers overall by 20,000 by March next year – and beyond.

We could end up with more police being less effective than they could be because the civilian staff are not there to support them. We need both civilian staff and officers.

A shortened version of the Police and Crime Commissioner for South Yorkshire’s latest blog post.​​​​​​​