Burglary and Operation Safer Homes

Report: 06
Date: 09 January 2003
By: Commissioner

Summary

The purpose of this report is to provide details on the introduction of Operation Safer Homes. The report focuses upon burglary performance over the first seven months of 2002/03, and examines the impact of Operation Safer Homes on the thirteen designated boroughs.

A. Recommendation

Members are asked to note the report.

B. Supporting information

1. The MPS targets for 2002/03 in burglary are to reduce offences by 1% and to achieve a judicial disposal (JD) rate of 11%. Consequently, Operation Safer Homes (OSH) has been implemented as the Metropolitan Police Service’s operational response to reducing and detecting offences of burglary.

2. OSH was formally launched on 28 October 2002, with the designated SH boroughs being: Barnet, Bromley, Croydon, Enfield, Greenwich, Harrow, Hillingdon, Hounslow, Lewisham, Redbridge, Southwark, Waltham Forest and Wandsworth.

3. Following the phenomenal success of Operation Safer Streets in relation to street crime, a similar approach was adopted across the boroughs. This effectively means that the deployment of pan-London resources was extended to combat burglary, whilst sustaining the MPS’s commitment to Operation Safer Streets.

4. All BOCUs were sent a template to complete summarising their plan to combat burglary, underlining the fact that ownership of this challenge is MPS wide. However only a specific number of BOCUs were designated as OSH BOCUs. boroughs included were chosen following consideration of their volume contribution and percentage change in the number of offences for the performance year to date compared to last year’s figures.

MPS burglary performance

5. Examining overall MPS performance specifically, between April to October 2002/03, the number of burglary offences has increased by 1.1%, with the JD rate standing at 12.6% which is well above the 2002/3 JD target set.

6. The month by month trends in burglary offences and JD rate are detailed below.

Graph April 2001 to October 2002 Burglary offences and Judicial disposals is avaialable in hard copy from the MPA.

7. As can be seen from the above chart, since May 2002 there has been a general downward trend in burglary offences recorded. The small increases in the months of July and October 2002 may be due to seasonal effects around these periods. Furthermore, the chart also illustrates a significant improvement in JD rates, with a particular upward change from July 2002.

Borough Level Performance

8. The table shown on page 3 details individual borough performance year to date (April to October 2002) against each bespoke target. However, it should be noted that as OSH was not introduced until 28 October 2002, the impact of the Operation will not be apparent in the crime levels listed below, as they include data only up until the end of October 2002. More recent performance for the OSH boroughs will be discussed within the Safer Homes Boroughs section.

Note: Bold = Operation Safer Homes boroughs, * = above target

9. Thirteen boroughs are currently achieving their bespoke burglary offences target. Specifically, Lambeth are exceeding their target by the largest amount between April to October 2002 in comparison to the corresponding months in 2001 with a 19.8% reduction, followed by Sutton who are achieving a 15.6% decrease in burglary offences. Bromley (+16.3%), Hounslow (+16.0%) and Croydon (15.4%) show the largest increases in offences recorded.

10. Between April and October 2002, none of the recently designated OSH borough achieved their set burglary reduction target, which was a further precursor for their inclusion within the operation. As previously stated, specific OSH boroughs performance since this date will be analysed later in this report.

11. Examining MPS burglary JD rates specifically shows that twenty-one boroughs are currently hitting their bespoke target, with Richmond upon Thames (23.1% JDs), Enfield (20.5% JDs) and Islington (20.4% JDs) achieving the highest judicial disposal rate between April and October 2002. Furthermore, during this same period, eight OSH boroughs were achieving their bespoke burglary JD target.

12. A further breakdown of burglary offences by borough allowing a visual comparison of performance achieved between April to October 2002 is attached within Appendix A (in the form of a boston box).

Performance in Safer Homes Boroughs

13. Examining designated OSH boroughs performance specifically, between April to October 2002/03, although the number of burglary offences has increased by 9.7%, the JD rate stands at 12.8% which is well above the 2002/3 JD target set.

14. However, in order to understand the impact of OSH it is necessary to examine the weekly data collated since the introduction of the operation. Consequently, analysing the previous 8 weeks up until 27th November 2002, illustrates that there has been a 9.5% decrease in offences in OSH boroughs compared to the same eight weeks during 2001.

Implementation of Operation Safer Homes

15. Territorial Policing implements the control strategy for OSH, taking the structure and good practice developed for Operation Safer Streets as its template. In essence, the two operations are controlled in parallel, and the boroughs are termed collectively as priority boroughs. Performance of all MPS boroughs is monitored by way of a weekly report, and this gives the facility of including or releasing boroughs from the priority group. As an example, Hammersmith and Fulham have recently been included in the group.

16. The control strategy takes the form of a Gold Strategy Group (monthly) and a tactical meeting (initially bi-weekly, now monthly). In order to facilitate the communication within the MPS as a whole, the control strategy has now evolved to include all BOCU commanders at the Gold Group meeting and all crime managers at the tactical meeting rather than solely those representing the priority boroughs. In addition both BTP and Transport and Traffic OCU are included in these meetings. Poorly performing boroughs (including non-OSH) will be offered resources, advice, skills and expertise to enable them to improve their performance. The meeting also acts as the conduit for best practice to be disseminated to all boroughs etc. and is seen as one of the major success factors in the delivery and success of both Safer Homes and Safer Streets.

17. Territorial Policing co-ordinates pan-London resources, focussing on the objectives of both OSS and OSH. These resources are allocated to the boroughs through the tactical meeting, and are concentrated to the priority boroughs. In addition, all boroughs have the facility to bid for financial support from the Territorial Policing Contingency Fund for use in local and cross border proactive operations.

18. A strategy document has been produced to detail the control strategy and how it is delivered. The plan also includes a number of tactics to be run under the leadership of Territorial Policing, and a menu of tactics for use by boroughs.

Other initiatives

Activity to support the launch of Operation Safer Homes

19. Activity to tackle burglary was undertaken in advance of the launch of the operation. This included the dissemination to all boroughs of performance in relation to forensic identifications and outstanding or wanted suspects for offences of burglary. Boroughs were asked to concentrate efforts on these areas in anticipation of the formal launch of the operation. It is difficult to quantify the results of this, although a general downward trend did commence.

20. Immediately prior to the launch, all MPS boroughs were requested to carry out sustained and high profile activity from the 25th through to the 27th of October, specifically targeting burglary and related crime. A total of 445 borough operations took place involving 1103 officers. This activity resulted in 369 arrests in total, 237 of which were for burglary and handling stolen goods. Of the arrests, 163 individuals were charged and over 260 judicial disposals obtained. Further investigations were still taking place at the time of results collection. A substantial amount of stolen property was recovered and in some boroughs significant seizures of Crack Cocaine and other controlled drugs were made. The value of stolen property seized was estimated to be half a million pounds. The street value of drugs seized was estimated at over £100,000.

Crimestoppers

21. Crimestoppers have been at the forefront of the advertising campaign to support Operation Safer Homes. All actionable information received via Crimestoppers in relation to cross-border priority crime is disseminated to Territorial Policing. In relation to burglary, seven operations have been conducted as the result of information. Four are ongoing, and three have resulted in arrests, one for a number of aggravated burglaries.

Operation evader

22. Operation Evader was an MPS-wide covert operation targeting persons wanted for arrest or failure to appear at court with the arrest phase ending on 6th December 2002. Priority crime was again focussed on, alongside other serious crime. In total 139 persons were arrested, with other arrests anticipated following intelligence obtained during the operation. Notably, these arrests included 20 for burglary, 4 for handling stolen goods and 10 for robbery.

Artifice/Aggravated Burglary

23. Territorial Policing Crime Squad is a proactive unit with part of its remit to tackle suspects for artifice and aggravated burglary, as well as serial offenders for burglary and robbery offences beyond the capability of boroughs. In the financial year to date, they have conducted 11 operations against aggravated burglars, resulting in 38 arrests and 147 judicial disposals. Property to the value of £8 million has been recovered. Additionally 16 operations against artifice burglars have been conducted resulting in 16 arrests and 739 judicial disposals. £570,000 worth of property has been recovered.

Mobile Phone burglaries

24. Initial analysis undertaken by Leicestershire Constabulary reveals that commercial premises have been actively targeted for organised burglary of mobile phones. It is estimated that since 2000, 500 such offences have occurred nationwide, resulting in an estimated £7.5million worth of mobile phones being stolen. Around a third of these offences have occurred within the MPS. Territorial Policing is preparing a strategy to tackle this issue.

Summary

25. This paper summarises a number of initiatives to tackle burglary. OSH has recently been implemented and draws on good practice from previous successful operations. A verbal update will be provided to PPRC, which will outline initial outcomes of OSH.

C. Equalities and diversity implications

There are no equality or diversity implications resulting from this paper

D. Financial implications

OSH has been funded using existing Territorial Policing contingency funds.

E. Background papers

None.

F. Contact details

Report author: Jessica Jones and Laura Parry, MPS.

For more information contact:

MPA general: 020 7202 0202
Media enquiries: 020 7202 0217/18

Appendix B

Comments from Boroughs

Comments were invited from three contrasting boroughs to be included in this report.

Supt Pountain – Camden

Camden borough is sitting on an overall 18% reduction in street crime. This has not been without cost however, and I have spent an awful amount of money on crime reduction as well as having a rise in Burglary of 3.6% that can in some way be attributed to the fight against street crime.

I do not believe that I have had a major shift of offenders across crime type as I am still seeing the same faces for robbery and different ones for burglary. I believe that the three street drugs markets on the borough at Bloomsbury, Kings Cross and Camden Town which match my street crime hot spots are a major contributor to my crime levels both in burglary and robbery. I am tackling that by putting lots of effort into crack houses and street drugs markets.

For example during crackdown on 20th November we targeted six addresses and got 11 arrests with about 50 rocks of crack. Last week we finished a test purchase operation in Camden Town that resulted in 34 arrests for a variety of offences involving class A and B drugs.

Sustained activity costs though, both in financial terms and officer fatigue. We are as ever eager to achieve our targets and indeed to outperform them. Watch this space as we keep up the work.

DCI Kaye – Lambeth

Lambeth borough implemented a burglary strategy to reduce and stem the increase of residential and non-residential burglary in April 2002. The basis for the strategy mirrored that of Safer streets.

The borough is divided into three sub commands, with the structure developed to have enhanced focus and responsibility.

Operational Activity Includes:

• Analytical product produced daily and reviewed at Borough Co-ordination Tasking Group (BCTG) weekly.
• Hot spots targeted with High visibility patrols using dedicated uniform task force officers.
• Bail curfew enforcement for burglars mirrored that of safer streets with strict enforcement of breaches.
• Daily intelligence meetings to review, debrief and amend patrol strategy. This takes place at each sub command and includes all CRIMINT Intel arrests of offenders and linked series of offences.
• Identified prominent burglars proactively targeted and arrested.

Investigation Includes:

• Priority crime units at each sub command dedicated to the investigation of burglary.
• Minimum standard investigation template for CRIS.
• Dedicated Burglary reporting cars.
• All Burglary investigations reviewed by Detective Inspector.
• All Burglary offenders arrested are researched to identify linked series and enhance charging capability.
• Section18 and 32 searches for all offenders arrested. These are both searches conducted under the PACE Act following the arrest of a suspect.
• Custody remand applications for all offenders.
• All ident dockets audit trailed and passed to DI on Priority Crime Unit (PCU). To be completed in two weeks and reviewed at sub command BCTG’s.
• Crime Prevention Officers work in conjunction with PCU and tasked by DI to identified hotspot areas.
• Dedicated borough source unit (DSU) has dedicated officers employed on Burglary sources.
• Fast track response to link DSU with proactive teams.

DCI Worker – Harrow

Harrow borough began this financial year as with the MPS addressing the problem of Street Crime, and made remarkable reductions. Indeed of the non-safer streets boroughs we were the highest achievers including being mentioned in the Prime Ministers briefing as being one of the highest achieving areas in the Country. The latest MMR shows a 22% reduction and positioned eighth in the MPS. Much of this success was directly attributable to the work of analysis conducted driving limited resources to the appropriate responses.

Burglary on the borough has become more problematic with the burglary figures currently showing a 13% increase this year. The first quarter of the year saw our JD rate (traditionally low on borough) rise to over 17%. The first quarter also saw downward trends from the previous year and indeed Harrow was week on week the best performing borough for both Street Crime and Burglary trend reduction.

However, following this period, our capability was severely disrupted when our two analysts were recruited elsewhere. Although the summer saw a shift of emphasis towards burglary with innovative targeting and central bidding for resources helped by the Safer Homes initiative, by this time we were operating without any analytical support. The last quarter has seen the JD rate fall to less than 7% on average leaving a rate of 13%.

The borough has been without any analysts since the early summer, a position that we have found untenable when attempting to sustain our reduction of street crime and further impact on burglary under Operation Safer Homes. We have finally last week gained one analyst and TP management team are supporting my exploration into recruiting a further analyst externally.

Class A drugs has become a major area of abstraction. Undercover operations are necessary and we are in a period of heavy deployments. The link between property crime and crack is clear - disruption of this market will assist greatly. However due to meagre human resources Harrow can only deal with one priority at a time.

Although difficult to evidence displacement is a major consideration, highest burglary areas within borough are on the West (Ealing) and East (Brent) borders. Both boroughs have had considerable additional resources this year.

Compstat is useful but support is what is ultimately required. Harrow burglary trends had been down three years in a row. TPHQ SMT is acknowledging this issue and that sustained activity and results are most meaningful. Striking the balance is both critical and more credible.

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