Police are looking for people to act as a community look-out on every street as part of a crackdown on burglary.Didn’t we use to have this? I’m pretty sure we did, and it was called ‘Neighbourhood Watch’…
Residents will be selected from streets across South-end, Rochford and Castle Point and given a hotline number to call if they spot any suspicious behaviour.
The initiative is possible thanks to a £34,000 Home Office grant to tackle the rise in house burglaries in the South East.Ah, my mistake. This must be a ‘new initiative’. Look, it’s attracted government grant money, and they don’t dish that out just for recycling old ideas.
Do they…?
Chief Insp Paul Eveleigh, of Castle Point police, said he hoped the community would galvanise itself against crime. He said: “If there is anybody, or vehicles, in a community people are not happy with, they will be able to phone this hotline and officers dedicated specifically to the operation will be able to come and check them out.”Hmmm, I sure hope the people who will use this idea are careful how they phrase their calls, or they might find themselves on the wrong end of a policeman with a thirst for easy detections….
Mr Eveleigh said: “We can blanket a hotspot where we’ve got problems and almost ask someone to provide sentry duty.” The money will also be spent on targeting vulnerable areas, giving crime prevention advice and marking property.And how is this any different to what should already be done?
‘Intelligence led policing’. Remember that?
Officers will also be using automatic number plate recognition cameras in an attempt to find burglars who escape by car.You mean, no-one thought of doing this before…?
This is just more rearranging of the deckchairs on the Titanic, isn’t it?
This is just more rearranging of the deckchairs on the Titanic, isn’t it?
ReplyDeleteIndeed, except Chief Insp Paul Eveleigh will have a fantastic example ticking many boxes to include on his next application for promotion etc.
There will be 'engaging with the community and hopefully a very special community (nudge nudge no wot i meen) cut n paste this
http://www.npia.police.uk/en/docs/National_Competency_Framework.doc
to see the various competencies he will have to provide evidence for lots of citizen/commoonitee and customer focus stuff AND 'DIVERSITY' Hurrah!
DRIVEL!
Children will be reporting their Parents for smoking, soon. Games consul and crisps for life, the reward.
ReplyDeleteYes, it's just a revamped Neighbourhood Watch (NHW). There's nothing much wrong with the existing scheme.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, I have worked with those NHWs that exist in my own ward, and with the police> I also helped get two new ones going in recent years, so it's not exactly an obsolete scheme.
This is a headline-grabbing idea alone, with a tiddly amount of money going into these three areas (so it clearly isn't a serious initiative), and from the Chief Inspector's quoted words, looks to be just another in the sequence of almost-identical such initiatives in recent years.
We've had Local-COPS (Community-Oriented Partnership Solutions — I think it was), PACT (Partners And Communities Together), and now this.
Most of it is seen by much of the public as a way for the police to duck out of doing their job and lumbering it onto others. There seems to be no shortage of police resource for these wheezes, but not for anything else such as dealing with actual crime.
It's all part of the Common Purpose-derived master plan to create the Soviet Republic of Britain, and people are at last getting wise to what is going on around them.
Hopefully it isn't too late to do something about it.
To my knowledge, there are half a dozen men round here who, like me, would happily patrol the neighbourhood from time to time.
ReplyDeleteThere is one condition: we would insist on the restoration of the handguns taken from us in 1997, and wear them under our jackets.
A couple of us would prefer to sling a rifle over our shoulders while walking the dog, but that is a question of personal preference.
Crime thoroughly discouraged, job done.
Do all these community people report to Herr Himmler? Just asking!
ReplyDeleteA hotline number?
ReplyDeleteDidn't it used to be the number of the local policeman?
You know, that person who used to exist in every town and village up and down the land?
"..Chief Insp Paul Eveleigh will have a fantastic example ticking many boxes to include on his next application for promotion .."
ReplyDeleteA pity his promotional chances aren't tied to the crime rate on his patch, instead...
"This is a headline-grabbing idea alone..."
Bankruptcy of ideas, indeed. But I expect he thinks 'Well, if the big boys can do it...'!
Chief Insp Paul Eveleigh, of Castle Point police, said he hoped the community would galvanise itself against crime. He said: “If there is anybody, or vehicles, in a community people are not happy with, they will be able to phone this hotline and officers dedicated specifically to the operation will be able to come and check them out.”
ReplyDeleteThey do not turn out for 999 calls NOW. Why are these Stasi/Gestapo style informers* going to be getting preferential treatment?
Why should THEIR word be given any more weight than you or Fred Bloogs two doors away using the present treble 9 system?
Yet another "I had a good idea once" tick that some bastard with scrambled egg on his hat can out in his force C.V to get even MORE scrambled egg for his hat. (Not to mention the extra that will find it's way into his pay packet).
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockleiter
Von Brandenburg-Preußen.