The latest plank of the Government’s policing reform shows more of a place for the private security industry in areas as diverse as fraud and IT crime investigation, and community safety.
The National Policing Plan for England and Wales, published on November 20, sets out the Government’s priorities for the police for the next three years. Targets by 2003-4 include deployment of more than 1,000 CSOs, with 4,000 by 2005-6; and £24m available to fund further warden schemes. The plan promises a ‘wide-ranging Anti-Social Behaviour Bill before summer 2003’. The plan is part of Home Secretary David Blunkett’s reforms of the police, as he says in a foreword: ‘The three-year Plan sets out a clear national framework for raising the performance of all forces and publishes the indicators against which performance will be judged.’
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‘Reform essential’
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He adds: ‘Reform is essential if we are to reduce crime; tackle criminality, anti-social behaviour and the fear of crime; and to provide the first class professional service every one has the right to expect.’ That means, Mr Blunkett says, police should work in partnership with other agencies contributing to community and road safety. In this as in other ways the plan follows the road of Labour’s crime reduction policies since the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. The detail of the plan is set out in ‘actions that chief officers and police authorities should take account of in local policing plans’. There the Home Office says that ‘Chief officers should make full use of officers, special constables, CSOs and other members of the extended police family as part of the force’s response to anti-social behaviour.’ For instance, police should have a strategy to tackle the most persistent offenders. All agencies ‘should engage more effectively in partnership working’ – a regular refrain of the plan.
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Crime targets
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The plan restates targets to reduce vehicle crime, burglaries and street robberies, which begs the question: will crimes not named as priorities, such as fraud, be sidelined by police’ Possibly as a nod to the fact that fraud and related white-collar crimes are not tackled as fully as possible by police, the plan says that police investigations will be not only by police detectives but ‘support staff with appropriate skills and experience. The Police Reform Act allows chief officers to designate suitably qualified support staff as investigating officers and confer on them appropriate police powers to enable them to operate effectively as part of, or indeed leading, an investigative team. This might be particularly beneficial for fraud and other financial crime as well as the use of IT for criminal ends, all of which is on the increase.’ The plan sees too more of a place for back-up from civilians, releasing police for front line – ‘Chief officers and police authorities should examine the balance between police officers and custody support staff, escort staff and civilian investigators and set clear targets in their local plans for significantly increasing the proportion of officer time spent on frontline duties.’
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National standards
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Local plans must include three-year targets for reducing vehicle crime, burglary and robbery against which the contribution of each force to meeting the national targets in these areas can be measured. Broadly speaking, the Blunkett plan seeks standardisation and measurement of policing across England and Wales, for everything from recruitment standards to cutting bureaucracy to numbers of ethnic minority officers and to reducing sick leave. The plan proposes the profiling of the whole active criminal population on DNA database by 2004 (currently projected to be 2.6m). For full details of the plan,
