In the past few months, UK citizens have gone to the polls twice, first to elect their local Police and Crime Commissioners, then to vote in the General Election. For those exercising these voting rights, reducing crime weighed heavily in their decisions.
Crime reduction is clearly a unanimous priority for citizens, businesses, police and government officials alike. And when it comes to making neighbourhoods safer, police-community engagement is key. It should therefore come as no surprise that over the last 12 months, several national initiatives have emerged geared at promoting better community-police engagement.
Just last October, the Labour Party announced its crime-fighting plan (dubbed the Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee).The plan, which is funded by cost savings from the Police Efficiency and Collaboration programme), pledges to grow the number of officers, Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) and special constables patrolling local communities. It also ensures that every community has a named officer as its central point of contact. The Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee builds on the Police Uplift Programme, which increased the net new number of police officers across the UK by over 20,000.
Forces in England and Wales are also charging forward with their own innovations to improve community engagement in crime-fighting. One example is Lancashire Constabulary’s NICE2SHARE initiative. The ‘digital neighbourhood watch’ is aimed at helping police deter crime and bring criminals to justice faster.
To participate, home and business owners with CCTV cameras simply register their cameras (voluntarily and at no cost) via Lancashire’s Community Portal on the NICE Investigate Digital Evidence Management System. When a crime occurs, an investigator identifies any registered cameras in the area (geolocated on a map), and emails a request to secure the video. The business or homeowner can then immediately upload the video through the Portal.
Of course, crime isn’t confined to neighbourhoods. It’s also rampant in retail settings. Shoplifting is on the rise, but even more worrisome is the latest British Retail Consortium survey which reports that shop workers are subjected to over 1,300 incidents of violence and abuse daily. It has become such a huge problem that the UK government has even introduced legislation to make assault on a shop worker a specific criminal offence.
In light of these troubling trends, the National Police Chiefs' Councils and the National Business Crime Centre have also forged the Retail Crime Action Plan, which prioritises police attention on retail crimes, especially those of a violent nature. The Action Plan highlights the importance of business-police partnerships in the fight against retail crime, and the need for more efficient ways to report crimes and share digital evidence.
Specifically, the Plan calls for retailers and police to adopt Digital Evidence Management solutions for sharing CCTV video and other evidence. Superintendent, Patrick Holdaway of the National Business Crime Centre, commented: “[The Retail Crime Action Plan] demonstrates policing’s commitment to tackling shoplifting and provides clarity on how the police should respond to reports of retail crime. Importantly it also provides practical advice on how retailers can secure the best evidence possible to aid police investigations and help bring those responsible to justice.”
Here, the NICE Investigate Digital Evidence Management solution (DEMS) is helping too.
Today, over 20 police forces and organisations across the UK are using the NICE Investigate community portal to bolster their evidence gathering capabilities from small, large, and multinational retailers. Officers are able to work collaboratively with businesses and community members and speed up the investigation and justice process through fast, effortless sharing of video and digital evidence.
So what do these developments tell us?
One revelation is this – making neighbourhoods and retail settings safer can’t simply be solved by putting more ‘feet on the ground.’ Innovative, problem-solving solutions that leverage DEMS can go a long way toward being force multipliers, and helping police, communities and businesses work better together in fighting crime.