Performance Report: street crime

Report: 08
Date: 11 April 2002
By: Commissioner

Summary

This report gives an update of street crime performance against targets and current initiatives.

A. Recommendation

Members are asked to note the report.

B. Supporting information

1. The Metropolitan Police Authority's Policing and Performance Plan 2001/02 stated, 'Consultation with Londoners showed that street crime continues to be a critical concern.' In recent months, this concern has continued to influence the Metropolitan Police response to increasing levels of street crime.

Definition

2. Street crime is the sum of the two Home Office crime categories:

• Robbery of personal property
• Snatch theft

Measurement

3. Street crime is measured by:

• the number of recorded (classified and confirmed) street crime offences;
• the judicial disposal¹ rate for street crime.

¹ Judicial Disposals = Charge, Summons, Caution (includes Youth Warnings), Previously Reported Offence Taken Into Consideration (Prev Rep TIC)

Police and performance plan target

4. The Policing and Performance Plan 2001/02 set the following target for street crime:

Table 1

MPS performance

5. The current MPS performance against target for street crime is (April 2001 – February 2002):

• the number of recorded street crimes – 38% increase (target 2% decrease)
• the number of judicial disposals – 7.8% (target 10%)

6. Chart 1 (see Supporting material) below plots MPS recorded street crime offences monthly from April 2000 to February 2002 (blue line). The chart also plots the level of street crime offences necessary to be achieved if the target reduction of 2% is to be reached (red line).

7. A fall in the number of classified and confirmed offences is apparent for February 2002. This is has resulted in the lowest month-on-month comparison (18% increase) since April 2001 when it stood at 17% increase. This compares to the worst month-on-month increase in November 2001 of 66% increase. The Safer Streets Campaign started on 4th February 2002 (see below).

Borough performance - offences

8. Chart 2 (see Supporting material) plots the individual performance of each borough showing the percentage change in street crime for the planning year to date (April 2001 – February 2002).

9. Care needs to be exercised in interpreting the above chart. The chart shows the percentage change in street crime comparing the same period (April –February) 2000/01 with 2001/02. Greenwich is shown as having the largest percentage increase in street crime – 72%. This actually represents an increase of 334 offences, from 466 offences last year to 800 offences this year.

10. This is in contrast to Lambeth who show a 41% increase in offences. This represents an increase of 2,203 offences, from 5,378 offences last year to 7,581 offences this year.

11. The following chart represents the percentage contributions each borough makes to the MPS total number of offences.

12. Chart 3 (see Supporting material) demonstrates the contrast between boroughs such as Lambeth and Greenwich. Lambeth contributes 12% of the total MPS Recorded Street Crime Offences (7,581 offences) whereas Greenwich contributes 1.3% towards the MPS Total (800).

Borough performance – judicial disposals

13. Chart 4 (see Supporting material) plots the individual performance of each borough showing the percentage judicial disposals achieved in the planning year to date (April 2001 – February 2002).

14. Twelve boroughs are currently exceeding the MPS target of 10% Judicial Disposal Rate, however, the combined total MPS Judicial Disposal Rate remains below the target at 7.8%.

Safer Streets

15. The Safer Streets Campaign started on 4th February 2002 with additional police resources being made available to nine boroughs that were experiencing the highest levels of street crime. Early results are extremely encouraging as described below.

16. The following chart indicates the performance of the nine boroughs involved in the Safer Streets Campaign. The chart shows the percentage change in recorded Street Crime for the months of January 2002 as compared to January 2001 and February 2002 as compared to February 2001. It can be seen that all of the boroughs managed to reduce the percentage change in street crime for the month of February 2002. This represents 819 fewer recorded street crimes than for January 2002. Three of the boroughs, Lambeth, Tower Hamlets and Brent, recorded their best performance in this respect so far this planning year.

Table 2

17. It should however be noted that only Lambeth managed to achieve a month-on-month reduction in street crime.

18. Overall, until January 2002, the nine boroughs were experiencing a 38% increase in recorded street crime. Following just over three weeks for the Safer Street Campaign, this increase has been reduced to 35%.

19. Early indications are that the additional police resources and surrounding publicity has impacted significantly on the levels of street crime across the nine boroughs involved in the campaign. However, whilst these successes have also impacted on the overall street crime figures for the MPS, there are some indications that these gains may not be sustainable.

20. Chart 5 (see Supporting material) shows the number of street crime allegations per week across the MPS since 10th December 2001. The lower line is the level of allegations over the same period last year. The red dot indicates the first week of the Safer Streets Campaign.

21. In viewing the above chart it has to be remembered that not all allegations of street crime are subsequently recorded against the same crime category after the offence has been investigated.

Displacement of crime

22. There are also indications that some of the boroughs surrounding those involved in the Safer Streets Campaign are experiencing an increase in street crime. This may be caused by "displacement", where offenders, noticing increased police activity in one area, move to another area to commit offences. This displacement tends to be short lived with offenders returning to their previous areas of activity when the numbers of police present on the streets reduces to their previous levels. Chart 6 (see Supporting material) indicates the %change in street crime allegations between 4/2/02 to 10/3/02 as compared to the previous 5 weeks.

23. This can also be seen that when comparing recorded street crime for January 2001 with January 2002, and February 2001 with February 2002, in Bromley and Lewisham both experienced an increase. However, it must be emphasised that the numbers involved are small. (See table 3.)

Table 3

Building on the Safer Streets Campaign

24. The Safer Streets Campaign is being extended to cover a further six boroughs. However, the continuing success of this campaign depends on being able to sustain the levels of resources being directed at this problem. The additional officers made available for the first nine boroughs came from the traffic and territorial support group. This activity diverted those officers from their normal duties and any impact of this change has yet to be quantified.

25. To extend this campaign across a further six borough whilst continuing to support the original nine boroughs represents a significant challenge to the resources of the MPS. It is the sustainability of the tactics that have been deployed against street crime that is the key to any continuing improved performance.

Safer Streets Campaign - best practice

26. Many of the tactics employed in the Safer Streets campaign were developed from Operation Strongbox. The following are examples of best practice that have been deployed to some effect during the Safer Streets Campaign:

27. Fast Marked Police vehicles to respond to reported robberies. These vehicles attend the scene of the robbery, pick up the victim(s) and circulate any descriptions of suspects. The vehicle then searches the area with the victim(s) to try to identify any suspects.

28. Covert Police Vehicles to sweep the area of a robbery and detain suspects pending a possible street identification.

29. Deploying dogs and handlers with sector officers.

Street crime targets 2002/03

30. Provisional Targets

• Zero growth in recorded street crime across the MPS.
• 5% reduction in recorded street crime on original nine Operation Safer Streets boroughs.
• 10% Judicial Disposal rate for street crime offences

31. The targets were originally to be set using a "bottom-up" process with each borough suggesting the target they could achieve using their existing recourses. These targets were then aggregated into a MPS Corporate target but are currently under review. The above targets have been proposed but are awaiting confirmation following additional consultation with local Crime and Disorder partners on the nine Safer Street boroughs.

Current and planned initiatives and actions to be taken to reach the policing plan target

32. In addition to the planned extension of the Operation Safer Streets to a further six boroughs and the extension of many of the most effective strategies and tactics developed for these initiatives, a number of Crime Prevention initiatives will continue, e.g.

• Mobile Phone Crime Prevention Campaigns
• Ultraviolet Identification or UVID
• Lokit, Mrkit, KEPit, Usit, DntL0sit!
  (or Lock it, Mark it, Keep it, Use it, Don't lose it! for those less familiar with the language of "texting")

See Appendix 2 for details of these initiatives.

33. The co-operation of the mobile phone companies is also being sought to promote other initiatives such as:

• Text Bombing
• Locking out stolen mobile phones based on their IMEI number

C. Financial implications

None.

D. Background papers

None.

E. Contact details

Report authors: Inspector Trevor Adams, Corporate Performance and Analysis Unit, MPS.

For information contact:

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

Appendix 1: Development of the Boston Box for visualising borough performance

Interpretation of the Boston Box

The vertical axis shows performance during the 2000/2001 planning year (either number of offences per population*, or % judicial disposals). Those boroughs performing better than the MPS average are shown in either section 1. or 2. (ie above the horizontal axis).

The horizontal axis (trend) shows how last year compared with the year before (either % increase/reduction in number of offences in 2000/01 compared with 1999/00, or change in JD rate between 1999/00 and 2000/01). Those boroughs whose performance has improved in the last year are shown in either section 1. or 3. (ie to the right of the vertical axis.)

Family groupings

Boroughs have been grouped by crime and disorder reduction partnership (CDRP) families in order to show how performance compares between similar boroughs. The families, and key to the colour used to represent each family on the Boston box, is as follows:

CDRP Family

Average performance

The examples use overall MPS performance as the average (this is used to position the horizontal axis). The average borough performance could instead be used (in most cases this will be very similar; however, MPS performance will be affected more by the performance of the largest boroughs. Borough average will place the same emphasis on each borough, large or small).

Appendix 2: Mobile Phone Crime Prevention Campaigns

For more information about campaign 1 see Supporting material.

Lokit, Mrkit, KEPit, Usit, DntL0sit!

(or Lock it, Mark it, Keep it, Use it, Don't lose it! for those less familiar with the language of "texting")

That's the message from the Metropolitan Police Service in a mobile phone crime prevention campaign. It is aimed particularly at schoolchildren but the advice applies equally to phone users of any age.

Eye-catching posters using mobile phone text language have been distributed in London's schools to encourage youngsters to be more cautious when using their mobile phones.

Schools liaison officers are going into all secondary schools to property mark phones and to offer advice on how pupils can prevent their phones being used if they are stolen.

Precautions to take

• Record your phone's IMEI number - which is unique to each phone. If the phone is stolen, this number can then be used by police to prove that the phone is stolen and to return it to the rightful owner.
• The IMEI number is displayed by pressing * # 0 6 # ("star", "hash", "zero", "six", "hash")
• Get you phone property marked.
• Keep your phone out of sight when you are in public places such as when you are walking in the street.
• Use any security features that are built in to your phone, such as additional security codes.
• If you are not using your phone then keep it turned off.
• If your phone is lost or stolen then report it immediately

Ultraviolet identification or UVID

For more information about campaign 2 see Supporting material.

The Metropolitan Police aims to mark thousands of mobile phones as part of a major new campaign to deter and trap mobile phone thieves. The initiative will also help protect other valuable items such as laptop computers and personal stereos.

The campaign is based around Ultraviolet Identification or UVID. This uses a special marker ink that is almost impossible to see and cannot be removed easily.

• The ink shows up under ultraviolet light. By using the ink to write the owner's postcode and house number on an item of property the item is permanently but discreetly marked.
• A UVID sticker tells any potential thief that your property marked and it can be traced.
• UVID marked property is more difficult for a thief to sell.
• If your property is UVID marked the police can easily identify it if it is stolen.
• If police recover UVID marked item it is easier for them to arrest the thieves and anyone handling stolen property.

Text bombing

Text-bombing of stolen handsets, involves bombarding a stolen mobile phone with a continuous succession of text messages effectively rendering the handset useless. This tactic has been successfully used in Holland but requires the backing of the mobile phone companies to institute.

Preventative initiatives such as the use of the IMEI number to block a stolen handset and Text Bombing to render a stolen handset unusable require the backing and support from mobile phone companies. Work continues with Central Government and mobile phone companies to explore ways of making.

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