WHY YOUR CALL MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE- The sound of peace-shattering scrambler bikes racing up and down the street every night outside your home would be enough to drive most people to pick up the phone and call the police. And you might wonder exactly what the police were doing to deal with anti-social behaviour in your community if, after that call, the same thing continued to happen night after night. It’s a scenario Sergeant Clement Samuels is familiar with, having received complaints about this very issue in his area of Birmingham for the last few months. Locals in Lee Bank have been left deeply frustrated and particularly fed-up of noisy bikes circling the estate’s residential streets during the long summer evenings. But Sgt Samuels and his team are working on a solution. It’s a solution that’s already making an impact, but it relies on those repeat calls from concerned residents in order to be effective. He’s one of many sergeants who work day in, day out to come up with answers to problems that blight the lives of people living in their areas as part of neighbourhood policing − and he’s urging people to pick up the phone. “It takes a lot for most people to call the police, he said. “So when someone actually dials 101 to speak to us, they’ve probably been putting up with that particular issue for some time and we have a responsibility to take that complaint seriously and do something about it. “We’ll always try and send police officers down to deal with the matter when we can, especially if the caller is vulnerable or a crime is in progress…but with lots of cases of anti-social behaviour, such as the scrambler bikes in Lee Bank, it’s difficult to catch those offenders in action and find a ‘quick fix’. “Now that causes us problems because those callers then see the same people doing the same thing the next night, just 24 hours after they called us − and they quite rightly question why nothing’s been done. Indeed, many wonder why they bothered contacting the police in the first place. “But the reality is we’re working very hard behind the scenes to look at long-term solutions and those calls mean everything to us if we’re going to sort the problem out! “Every contact someone has with the police is recorded and we review those logs at the beginning of our shift, meaning over time we can piece together an accurate picture of exactly what’s happening and how we can deal with it. They really are a crucial part of stopping that repeat behaviour through targeted patrols and other long-term resolutions. As well as stepping-up neighbourhood patrols at key times and drafting-in resources from across the force − such as specialist traffic officers, the force helicopter and local ‘Community Action and Priority Teams’ −Sgt Samuels’ officers are speaking to local people in an attempt to pinpoint the exact cause of the issue. Over the last few months they’ve seized nine vehicles include cars, quad bikes and trial bikes. Some were stolen or being used by non-licence holders and therefore uninsured, whilst others were simply being used in an anti-social way. Sergeant Samuels talks about why your calls make the difference: youtu.be/MLOD_vWpv_Y Read more about what we do to tackle asb, here: bit.ly/1BxaKbY
Posted on: Tue, 19 Aug 2014 12:35:06 +0000
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