As featured in the October print issue of Professional Security, autumn sees university students return to campus and a new set of freshers. Alan Cain of Leeds University was interviewed in the magazine.
As at Leeds – its neighbour Leeds Met is pictured – uni security guard forces and police for many years now have been doing joint work to make the first weeks and nights out at uni as safe as possible for freshers. For instance Greater Manchester Police (GMP) carried out a crime reduction operation on one of Manchester’s busiest nights of the year.
The operation in Manchester City Centre on Friday, September 19, saw over 30 Special Constables work with anti-social behaviour (ASB), licensing, child sexual exploitation (CSE) and ANPR interceptor teams.
Chief Inspector Pat Mckelvey said: “The operation was a great success and the feedback we have received from both the public and the specials that went out on Friday has been very positive. The presence of so many officers on one of the busiest nights of the year made everybody in the city centre feel a lot safer and reassured, especially some of the new students who don’t know Manchester.
“It also allowed us to show our appreciation of the great voluntary work that the specials do by giving them new experiences which they may not normally encounter during their regular duties.”
In Greater Manchester more than 80,000 students arrive in time for the new term. Officers increased their patrols in hotspot areas. Chief Inspector Arif Nawaz from Greater Manchester Police, said: “Students add to the vibrancy of our city and it’s great to see their return both new and old. Unfortunately, however we know that one in 10 crimes recorded in Manchester is against a student. This is why each year, we carry out a bespoke operation with the support of our partners including, the universities to help keep them safe.
“Students bring with them between £5,000 and £10,000 of high-tech gadgets and technology per five student household. This includes a smartphone, laptop and TV all of which are items craved by thieves. But unfortunately with the excitement of being away from home and their new environment, some students can become complacent with their home and personal security. Simple steps such as locking windows, doors both at front and back of the property as well as keeping valuables from view while in the home and out and about can prevent them from being a victim of crime.”
This year’s initiative coincides with Project Ark which focuses on burglary reduction in the Fallowfield, Ladybarn, Withington and Didsbury areas of South Manchester. It sees a team of officers from the area offender targeting with the support of the mounted and tactical aid units. The ANPR intercept teams will also target travelling criminals. Members of the Fallowfield and Didsbury Neighbourhood Policing Teams will deliver enhanced crime prevention advice to homes and neighbouring areas affected by burglary.
Detective Chief Inspector Dave Pester from GMP’s South Manchester Division is coordinating the project. He said: “The initiative was launched in anticipation of a predicted increase in burglary in these areas, which are the traditional student quarters of south Manchester.
“We want to send a clear message to those offenders who commit burglary that we will be relentless in our efforts to bring them to justice and to reduce the opportunities for them to commit crime. Many of the items hold more than a financial value, in fact your laptop alone contains music collections, photos and for those second and third year students lecture notes and work which contributes to your final grade.”
For more on student safety visit: www.gmp.police.uk/students or like the Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/mcrstudentsafer. The page includes updates on crime by areas and features advice on how to stay safe.
Students can also download the GMP mobile app for details of police meetings and surgeries.
Meanwhile in Liverpool, students are being encouraged to get their valuables security-marked for free by local police in a bid to foil burglars and thieves. Laptops, smart phones, bikes and TVs are among the items that criminals go for when people leave their front doors unlocked or bedroom windows open. Getting valuables security marked and registered to police-backed websites such as Immobilise.com are ways of giving the police a chance of returning stolen goods to their rightful owners.
Officers who patrol the Greenbank and Smithdown Road area where many students live – known locally as the ‘Dale streets’ and ‘the Avenues’ – have offered crime prevention advice. ‘Street reps’ from the universities and Liverpool City Council’s ‘healthy homes team’ also worked alongside the police. Inspector Tom Welch said a quick five minute chat with local officers could be invaluable to students getting to grips with sharing a home with friends for the first time.
He said: “It’s easy when you’re sharing a house to assume that someone else has closed all your windows, remembered to lock the back and front door and left a few lights on before you head out to the pub. But what if everyone assumes that and no-one actually does it?
“The possibility is that while you’re enjoying your first pint in the local pub or student union, someone could be walking into your new house and helping themselves to your valuables and those of your mates.
“I don’t need to spell out how devastating it is for people to come home to find their home burgled and their belongings gone. It could ruin your whole term or even your university career.
“So all we are asking is for students to take the simple steps such as locking their front and back doors, even when they are in, closing windows when they go out, and register their really valuable items so that in the unfortunate event they are stolen, we can return them specifically to them if we catch the perpetrator.”
Kensington and Edge Hill neighbourhood inspector, Dave Herron added: “It can be great living in your own house for the first time with all your friends but that can lead to complacency as no-one wants to be the one who tries to impose rules on running the house.”
And Huddersfield University students designed a new app which aims to keep fellow students safe. They used a £10,000 grant from West Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner Mark Burns-Williamson, in conjunction with Kirklees Community Safety Partnership, to create the new app called ‘appy student’. The joint project, believed to be the first of its kind in the UK, is free to download and is available for iOS and Android-based smart phones and tablets.
While completing games based around ‘university life’ and ensuring the central student character stays safe, the app also includes links to safety advice from West Yorkshire Police, Kirklees Council and Huddersfield University.
As an incentive for students to use the app the first person to complete the game will win an Apple ipad. As well as promoting safety advice at freshers’ weeks, officers are also encouraging students to become part-time police officers by joining West Yorkshire Police as Special Constables.
Mr Burns-Williamson said: “I am pleased that I have been able to help fund this educational and informative app which aims to keep fellow students safe as they start the new academic year. Policing and helping keep people safe with crime prevention advice comes in many forms and development of apps like this form part of that, increasingly the use of social media and new technology will be key to providing instant and useful community safety advice and information. This project demonstrates how West Yorkshire is leading the way in using mobile technology to ensure students receive advice on keeping safe at university.”
Police Constable Laura Jackson, who helped devise the project and works at Huddersfield as the Student Safety Officer, said: ‘‘The result of the students hard and innovative work is a fantastic final product that’s as useful as it is entertaining. We’re always looking for new ways to engage with people and the app is a great tool for reminding students, many of them living away from home for the first time, of the simple things we can all do to keep ourselves and our property safe. The only problem is I can’t stop playing the game myself.’’
