On Wednesday I attended a "Youth Matters" event organised by some local beat officers at Oak Farm School. This was excellent, and demonstrated two things. First local policing is working. Second, crime and other issues are best dealt with working in partnership with others. The idea of the event was to show young people all the things that are available to do in the Borough. There is lots to do if you just take the time to look.
I think all youth activities should be listed on our web site, so young people can go on and check and find links with contact details etc.
I have come across some other innovative ideas recently - what do you think?
1. Make people apologise for their crime on YouTube, especially if they have bragged about their crime, as a compulsory part of their punishment.
2. Use Neighbourhood Watch co-ordinators and other trained volunteers to help police with some house to house investigations, to allow police to tackle higher priority issues - depending of course on the seriousness of the investigation - ie not a murder case, but theft etc!!
3. Police should all have PDA's (mini computers) to slash the paperwork they have to go back to the station to do.
1 comment:
All excellent comments. I really like the first one. It would be impossible to make someone mean their apology, although it would be a great deterrent.
As for Police using PDAs to complete paperwork remotely; they already have these systems available to them. The trouble is with public sector procurement the way it is - the systems come from a very small monopoly of technology providers which turn makes the technology expensive to acquire. SME business are usually unable to tender for these systems which reduces the pool of potential better value suppliers.
Regarding utilising Neighbourhood Watch co-ordinators to report crime, this is not a bad idea with regard to freeing up police offers. However existing NSO's, when given a choice between patrolling the street / "higher priority / visibility" issues and say, speed gunning motorists or visiting residents, often choose the speed gun and the house visits for an easier life.
What we need here is a return to "proper" policing. More officers on patrol and this can be paid for by making it easier for smaller businesses to tender for public sector contracts.
Over to you, David!
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