PCC Action day Killer on the loose

I spent today touring the region during a hectic but rewarding action day speaking to members of the public about their views on the role of Police and Crime Commissioner.  What was astonishing was the varying degrees of experiences of crime, members of the public had.  I spoke to one gentleman on Gosforth High Street whose stepson had been stabbed to death.  The offender got 4 years imprisonment and was out after only serving 2 and half years.  The family had to live with seeing this offender walking the streets freely whilst they were still grieving for their son. 

I toured the region in my bright orange 1972 VW campervan, which certainly seemed to capture the attention of the public.  I spoke to residents and business owners in Sea Road, Fulwell, Sunderland.  The first resident I met had just had her car broken into overnight.  The offenders smashed the side window.  She phoned the police that morning and they said that they couldn’t send anyone until 8pm that night.  As you can imagine she didn’t think much of that at all and I agreed with her that it was unacceptable. This is exactly the sort of thing we need to be telling the Chief Constable.  Victims of crime deserve a better service from the police.  The first business I went into Barlow’s the fruit shop had just been burgled during the week.  The business owner had been left with a £400 bill and the offenders had stolen petty cash of £40.00.

Many residents had some good ideas about crime prevention.  Sea Road was one of the few shopping areas without CCTV and business owners wanted to see more parking bays for customers feeling that people stopping to shop would put shop lifters off if they thought more drivers were paying attention rather then just driving through the area without stopping.

Later in the day I visited the Sub 21 Football anti youth disorder scheme in Wallsend with the elected Mayor Linda Arkley.  As usual 40 boys turned up to play on the same pitch making it difficult to identify who was on whose team.  Through the generosity of START FITNESS sports shop in Newcastle Phil was able to donate 40 coloured bibs so that the lads could identify who was on each team. 

The day ended with a general walkabout in Tynemouth with Linda Arkley talking to visitors and local residents.  I distributed many of his latest magazines 40,000 of which will be circulated across the region.

Drugs and reducing crime further

I’m looking at a radical shake up of the way the region deals with drug offenders to reduce crime, break the cycle of crime, improve the quality of life for residents and save taxpayers money.

At present we are not catching people with a drug addiction early, enough which means that their lives are spiralling out of control, and their habit is driving them to commit further crime without having any rational ability to stop or control it. 

I’ve spent the last two months speaking to people who work with drug offenders at every level, on the streets, management and right up to Chief Executive and they all say the same thing, we need to break the cycle of drugs and crime and have an integrated regional approach.  This means that everyone from Local Authorities, the police, probation and drug treatment agencies need to make radical changes to work more effectively together to catch drug offenders at an early stage.

According to the Home Office, national, research shows that offenders identified through a drug test on arrest (a mouth swab) already had an average of 8.8 convictions which means we are not catching drug offenders early enough. It also revealed that the overall volume of offending was lower (26 per cent) following identification through a positive Drugs Intervention Program drug test. Around half the offenders showed a decline in offending of around 79 per cent in the following six months.  These results show what a powerful impact early intervention can have on offenders addicted to drugs. The research shows that for ‘every £1 spent on treatment we can not only reduce crime but we can make £9.50 savings.

We are wasting valuable taxpayers money on a disparate, fragmented, approach, which is not structured or coordinated across the region.  We have the opportunity with the advent of the Police and Crime Commissioners to drive down crime even further by getting the key agencies to change the system ensuring that we offer a better drug intervention programme in a more organised and structured way.

At present we have essentially 6 different ways based on the work coordinated via our 6 Local Authorities and a patchwork quilt funding approach.  There are isolated examples of good practice largely in the urban areas but it’s not working effectively across the region and it’s not having a big as an impact as it could have.  I want to see radical changes in working practices to break the cycle of drugs and crime and offer one cohesive system across the region from Berwick to Houghton le Spring and Alston to Blyth.

This will allow us to, save many lives, make greater efficiency savings and drive down crime even further.  As PCC my mandate will be to work alongside the Chief Constable to improve the quality of life for residents, reduce crime even further and this is just one example of how we can do it.  We need in every neigbourhood, town and country, new multi agency teams of Neighbourhood Police Officers working alongside drug workers, probation, and the voluntary and charitable sectors.  We need to catch drug offenders on their first offence so that we can break the cycle of drugs and crime and divert them at that early stage away from, drug dependency and despair. “