Autocrime performance

Report: 11
Date: 13 March 2003
By: Commissioner

Summary

This report examines MPS performance in relation to autocrime offences, detailing judicial disposal rates, both operational and non-operational work focused in this area and looks at the recovery records for stolen and lost vehicles.

A. Recommendation

That the report be noted

B. Supporting information

1. Autocrime offences remain significantly higher (+13%) in the current financial year (April-December) than in the same period 1998-99, at the start of which a 5-year reduction target of 31% was set. However, in current years, the rate of increase has slowed considerably, with offences currently just achieving the target of zero growth on last year. The number of monthly offences has remained fairly consistently around the 20 - 22,000 level since April 1999.

Type of offences

2. During this period, theft from motor vehicle offences accounted for nearly 45-48% of autocrime and is the only type that continues to show a rising trend. On the other hand the increases in theft of motor vehicle (accounting for around 23-26%) and criminal damage to a motor vehicle ( 26-28%) have been reversed, with both categories slightly down this FYTD on the previous year. As detailed in the chart in Appendix 1.

3. Burglary offences that have also involved the theft of a motor vehicle appear to have risen significantly over the last few years. In the current year there was a monthly average of 140 such offences, compared to a monthly average of 65 in 2000/2001. The primary cause of this appears to be improved vehicle security that has encouraged car thieves to switch to burglary in order to steal high value vehicles such as BMWs and Mercedes. Analysis shows the average value of vehicles stolen through burglary is £11,103 compared to £3,020 for cars stolen off the street. Intelligence suggests that these high value vehicles are being exported to order. These organised operations are subject of preactively by the MPS Stolen Vehicle Unit.

4. A high profile area of vehicle crime 2002/03 has been ‘carjacking’ offences. These are also likely linked to improvement vehicle security and have seen offenders targeting the drivers of high value cars. Territorial Policing Crime Command is working with Boroughs to target violent crime. An example of this was Operation Backboard, which investigated a linked series of offences in the Lambeth area and led to five persons arrested and charged with four robberies. As a result of intelligence gathered by Territorial Policing Crime Squad two of these offenders were identified and subsequently charged with the murder of estate agent Timothy Robinson.

Judicial Disposals

5. The autocrime judicial disposal rate has not varied much since 1998/1999, remaining at around 4-5%. However, the rate does vary by crime type, as shown in the chart below. The 2002/2003 MPS target stands at 5% and is not currently being achieved.

6. Theft from motor vehicles, identified earlier as the predominant crime type has the lowest judicial disposal rate at 2%, whilst theft of motor vehicles has a higher judicial disposal rate at 8% and interference and tampering offences even higher around 9-10%, although there are far fewer recorded offences for the latter.

7. Overall only 7 boroughs are currently achieving both the judicial disposal target rate of 5% and the offences target of zero increase. The best performing boroughs appear to have been Bexley and Sutton. Both of these can attribute some of this success to an increase in secure by design car parks and high profile policing on autocrime hotspots. Also in Bexley, Operation Cubit, a partnership with the local authority, was aimed at the quick removal of abandoned vehicles, which are often a target for further offences.

Graph 1: Autocrime Judicial Disposal rate by financial year to December (see supporting material)

Borough variations

8. There are only 5 boroughs where autocrime offences in the current year are down on the same period in 1998-1999. These are Barking & Dagenham (-3%), Lewisham (-12%), Merton (-22%), Wandsworth (-10%) and Westminster (-2%). Additionally Croydon has experienced no increase.

9. The performance of the remaining boroughs and their contribution to the MPS increase of 21,170 offences (+13%) is illustrated in Appendix A.

10. The worst performing borough has been Tower Hamlets, which has the highest individual increase (+45%), whilst Camden has contributed 12% to the overall increase, with an individual rise of +41%. These Boroughs have recognised the impact of this. Tower Hamlets have re-organised their intelligence and tasking processes to address this rise. They are also working in partnership tackling environment issues in identified high crime areas. Camden is planning operational tasking in support of the forthcoming Safer Vehicles initative.

11. Of those boroughs showing an increase on the financial year 98/99 some are showing more recent reductions. In particular Bexley (-18%), Sutton (-13%), Hammersmith & Fulham (-7%) and Havering (-7%) have significant reductions on the last FYTD. These units have run proactive operations around vehicle crime in conjunction with burglary and street crime initiatives. Hammersmith and Fulham have had particular success by targeting persistent offenders and using a variety of disruption tactics in identified ‘hot spot’ areas.

Vehicle recovery

12. There were a total of 40,944 vehicles stolen this year to date, of which 51% were recovered. The recovery of motorcycles is consistently lower than motorcars and it is more likely that stolen vehicles are found abandoned (39%) rather than recovered after being stopped by police (6%).

13. The rate of recovery has been falling steadily since around January 2002. Around 60% of stolen vehicles were regularly being recovered, but this has dropped under 50% in recent months. In particular it appears that the number of vehicles being found abandoned is falling.

14. These lower rates of recovery are a pattern seen on all of the boroughs, with the exception of Kingston where the proportion of vehicles being recovered is consistently high (66% this FYTD). However, the fact that Kingston is currently experiencing a rise in autocrime suggests that good vehicle recovery rates do not necessarily help to reduce autocrime. More effective seems to be the quick removal of abandoned vehicles as demonstrated by Bexley, already mentioned in this report.

Autocrime target

The MPS corporate target for 2003/4 is to reduce vehicle crime by 7%.

15. In April 2000 all local police authorities set specific Best Value targets for reducing different categories of crime, one of which was to achieve a national reduction of 30% in vehicle crime by 2004. The MPS contributes to 18% of the national autocrime offences and has a local target of zero growth for 2002/03.

16. Work to achieve this target should involve for example working with the car industry to improve vehicle security through improvements to vehicle fabric and security devices; and improving the security of car parks, so increasing the number of car parks with Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) Secured Car Park status.

Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR)

17. It is intended that the MPS will be one of the country’s primary users of the ANPR system. The initial operation under Project LASER has been an undoubted success and with the commencement of Congestion Charging using ANPR technology, this presents the Service with some valuable opportunities to combat and reduce vehicle related crime on London’s roads.

18. Territorial Policing Crime Command are responsible for co-ordinating the MPS response on autocrime and are currently developing Operation Safer Vehicles, which builds on the reputation of the campaigns to reduce burglary and street crime. Operation Safer Vehicles will concentrate on supporting Boroughs in developing intelligence and prosecuting autocrime offenders.

19. One aspect of this operation and objective is the arrangements to develop a cost effective in-house recovery service, which will forensically examine stolen vehicles. This will maximise MPS resources and improve the detection and judicial disposal rate for motor vehicle crime. This service will have its own forensic/mechanical examination suite and the intention will be to extend DNA/forensic examination to all vehicles lost or concerned in crime, which should realise at least a 30% return in forensic evidence.

20. The MPA approved the acquisition of the first site in November 2002 and as a result Charlton was acquired in December and preparations are underway to fully equip it. The sites progress will be monitored by the MPS and reported on later in the year.

21. In addition to this site it is intended that the MPS through self-generated income will fund a further three site’s over the next three years. Consideration will also be given to taking on temporary external contracts to help improve the speed of the services offered to London in the short term.

C. Equality and diversity implications

There are no equality or diversity implications resulting from this paper.

D. Financial implications

There are no financial implications coming from this report.

E. Background papers

Graham Swinton PIB Autocrime Paper December 2002

F. Contact details

Report author: Karen Turner DCC2(4) and DI Howard, MPS.

For more information contact:

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

Send an e-mail linking to this page

Feedback