Street crime update: April-August 2003/4

Report: 4
Date: 9 October 2003
By: Commissioner

Summary

The report focuses on street crime performance over the first five months of 2003/04. The report also looks at the impact of new legislation around mobile phone reprogramming, and outlines plans for Operation Safer Streets Phase III.

A. Recommendations

That members note the report.

B. Supporting information

Offences

1. Following the large decreases in street crime offence levels experienced throughout the year 2002/03, the level has remained relatively stable throughout the early months of 2003/04 close to the average 2002/03 performance level. August’s street crime level was the lowest for some months, but not statistically significantly low.

Chart 1: Street Crime Offences from April 2001 to August 2003. (see supporting material)

2. The MPS target for 2003/04 is to reduce the level of street crime offences compared with 2002/03 by 10%. Performance in April-August 2003/04 showed a percentage change of -1.4%, making the target very challenging.

Judicial Disposals

3. The JD rate for April-August 2003/04 stands at 7.7%. This is a deterioration on the performance of the previous year which showed a JD rate of 8.6%.

Operation Safer Streets Phase 3

4. Commencing 29 September 2003 Operation Safer Streets 3 will be launched by a two-week intensive initiative. During this period all Boroughs are expected to focus their resources towards an immediate reduction in street crime offences. In addition Territorial Policing (TP), Serious Crime Directorate (SCD), Specialist Operation (SO), Deputy Commissioner’s Command (DCC), British Transport Police (BTP), City of London and Royal Parks Police will be providing additional resources co-ordinated through a daily tasking process.

5. Operation Safer Streets 3 will provide an opportunity for the MPS to:

• Re-launch activities to drive third and fourth quarter performance;
• Develop the TP Tasking and co-ordinating process;
• Drive cross border intelligence liaison and operational activity;
• Reduce street crime.

MPS Borough Performance

6. Ten out of fifteen Safer Streets boroughs have shown a year on year decrease for the five-month period April-August 2003. Westminster and Ealing are the top two performers in percentage reduction from 2002-2003. They are also the top contributors to good performance in street crime offence levels for the MPS total.

7. Although Hackney has shown the largest increase in offence numbers for the MPS, therefore having the largest impact in holding back the MPS’ good performance, it is exceeded in terms of percentage increases by seven boroughs namely Greenwich, Barnet, Hammersmith & Fulham, Lewisham, Sutton, Kensington & Chelsea and Richmond upon Thames.

8. These seven boroughs showing the largest increases in street crime offences, of which only two are Safer Streets boroughs, account for 16.6% of the MPS total.

9. Chart 2 shows a comparison between the projected 2003/04 volume change in street crime offences and the bespoke targets set for each borough.

Chart 2: Borough Street Crime Offence levels projected for 2003/04 compared to the set borough bespoke target levels. (see supporting material)

10. As can be seen from the graph, there are four boroughs that are on track to meet and exceed their bespoke targets based on their average monthly performance for this performance year to date. These boroughs are Westminster, Camden, Wandsworth and Hillingdon, the latter being the only non-OSS borough.

11. Eight out of the eleven boroughs farthest away from their respective bespoke target, are OSS boroughs, however three of these boroughs are showing a reduction in street crime, namely Lambeth, Haringey and Brent.

12. Hackney has shown to be the main contributor to the MPS’ inability to meet the target, based on its distance away from its bespoke target. With a reduction target second only to Lambeth, Hackney based on April-August 2003 performance, will have 1175 offences more than its target.

Funding issues for MPS re Operation Safer Streets

13. This year’s Government funding of £8.3m is allocated to the Operation Safer Streets (OSS) work for 2003/04. Funding is also available through TP’s Contingency Fund.

14. In addition to the 15 priority OSS boroughs that benefited from such funding last year, the remaining London boroughs will also receive funds from this allocation.

Impact of the legislation on re-programming mobile phones

15. The Mobile Telephones (Re-programming) Act 2002 came into force on October 4 2002 and makes offences of: changing, without the authorisation of the manufacturer, the unique identifying characteristic of a mobile phone – the IMEI number; and possessing, supplying or offering to supply the necessary equipment with the intent to use it for re-programming mobile phones.

16. Performance with regards to street crime offences involving only mobile phones for the performance year to date compared with the corresponding period of the previous year shows a slight reduction of 0.6%. This is very close to the overall 1.4% reduction and therefore the introduction of this legislation cannot be shown to have impacted on street crime levels.

17. The National Mobile Phone Crime Unit (NMPCU) went ‘live’ on Monday 15th September 2003. Whilst based in London, the unit has a national perspective and consist of stakeholders from key law enforcement agencies, the telecommunication industry and other partners. The unit will work in partnership to combat those that steal, handle, reprogram and export mobile phones.

London Street Crime Management Board

18. The street crime initiative issued by the government included the set-up of ministerial groups led by the respective Home Office ministers for ten UK regions, including London. The London group commenced and held its first meeting in June 2002, then called the London Street Crime Management Board, chaired by the Deputy Commissioner, Sir Ian Blair.

19. The group, a collaboration of a variety of voluntary and public sector agencies having an impact on any part of the process of dealing with street crime from start to finish as well as borough councils, meet regularly in order to effect change towards a better outcome. The full list of member agencies is listed in Appendix 1.

20. Through the street crime initiative, officials from the different government departments have been given the opportunity to understand how the London agencies interface. Recent meetings and resulting papers have seen greater discussion on the issue of monitoring development, in order to have a greater understanding of the impact of such a group on street crime and other priority crimes.

21. The government’s feeling of success led to the expansion of the group’s remit from a main focus on reducing street crimes to focusing on the broader ‘priority crimes’.

22. Consequently the group is now called the London Crime Reduction Delivery Board, and has a revised ‘terms of reference’ broadening its scope to concentrate attention on street crime, burglary and autocrime, and act as a focal point within London for efforts by other bodies aimed at reducing anti-social behaviour, acquisitive crime related to drug addiction, targeting persistent & prolific offenders, and increasing the number of offences brought to justice.

C. Equality and diversity implications

1. To meet reduction targets for street crime, stop and search may increase across boroughs. The MPS remains aware that any street crime initiatives using stop and search must be evidence-based.

2. It is worthy of note that the Disproportionality sub-group of what is now the London Crime Reduction Delivery Board, has the overall aim of monitoring any disproportionality issues relating to the activities of agencies involved in achieving the street crime reduction targets and to report progress through the LCRDB.

D. Financial implications

None.

E. Background papers

None.

F. Contact details

Report author: Andrea Bennett, DCC2(4) CPG -Corporate Performance Analysis Unit, MPS.

For more information contact:

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

Appendix 1

Membership of London Crime Reduction Delivery Board (LCRDB)

The Board has the following constituent organisations:

MPS Deputy Commissioner
City of London Police
Home Office – Street Crime Action Team (SCAT)
Drugs Prevention Advisory Service (DPAS)
Home Office – Police Standards Unit (PSU)
Government Office for London – Director of Crime Reduction
London Criminal Courts Solicitors Association (LCCSA)
Criminal Defence Service (CDS)
London Victim Support (LVS)
Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA)
Crown Prosecution Service (CPS)
London Probation Service (LPS)
MPS Corporate Performance Group
HM Prison Service – London Area
Children & young Persons Unit (CYPU)
MPS Commander Criminal Justice
MPS Commander Drugs Directorate
MPS Commander Diversity Directorate
MPS Commander Community Safety & Partnership Unit
MPS Commander Crime Operations
Greater London Authority
Association of London Government (ALG)
Society of Local Authority Chief Executives representatives (SOLACE)
Courts Service – London Crown Courts
Connexions National Unit
London Crimestoppers Trust
DfES Behaviour & Attendance Programme Unit
DfES Behaviour & Youth at Risk Unit
DfES Safer Schools Partnerships Unit
British Transport Police (BTP)
Youth Justice Board (YJB)
Director of the Jill Dando Crime Science Institute

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