Anti-social behaviour

Dealing with anti-social behaviour is a key activity carried out by the neighbourhood team over the summer. I have touched on some of the activity in the update around the safer streets summer work as this overlaps with some of our crime types. To keep an eye on our progress we continue to seek feedback through local meetings, conversations with businesses and members of the public. And we feel the difference when we are out and about on patrols. We have monthly meetings about this subject ensuring that we get as many people as possible to contribute as many issues are things the police cannot tackle or improve in isolation.

Based on current information and reports from the public our key patrol areas this month remain as Queens Square, St Peter's Gardens and Dudley Street. We are in regular contact with the ASB Team to offer support and reduce the incidents of behaviours that make people feel unsafe when they come into the city. There are civil powers we are able to use to help if the offer of pathways of support are not effective. I attended our Pub Watch meeting this week where I heard some information regarding ASB linked with licensed premises showing the impact this behaviour can have on staff, not just visitors.

Uniformed officers from the city centre teams are busy responding to calls and investigating crimes - so far this week we have arrested people for theft (shoplifting), a serious assault, theft other and a lower level assault. Officers are progressing investigations into a range of crimes, assisting our Public Protection department with their enquiries.

We know we have key locations within the city where anti-social behaviour is more likely to occur. Our incident logs provide data to direct our patrols so we are in the right places at the right time. A Public Space Protection Order has been granted for the city centre to provide a long term approach to reducing incidents of anti-social behaviour that is committed by groups of people. Residents, visitors and businesses can enjoy a safer space without fear of confrontation.

Report anti-social behaviour so we are aware and can target our patrols. Whilst we always want to reduce the number of crimes that take place, we want recording to be a true reflection of the problems so we will continue to encourage reporting. We are aware the locations can change where anti-social behaviour happens and this can depend on the time of year and weather conditions.

A safe city centre - summer Safer Streets

This summer we see the summer Safer Streets campaign underway in Wolverhampton City centre and Bilston Town centre. This activity is focused around driving down retail crime, street crime and dealing positively when issues occur that make town centres feel less safe. This works fits in closely with our priority of ASB. This is an overarching priority for the city centre officers where we look to make the city feel a safe place to live, work and visit. We will share good news stories via our social media platforms and update on this platform.

Whilst we will always have priorities in policing - such as responding to emergency calls as quickly as possible, investigating crimes effectively and reducing public place violence (a few examples) and the city teams deal with a range of incidents and issues encountered by members of the public.

Our aim is to make the city feel safe - this can differ from the amount of crime that is reported to us.

Staff are out on foot and in vehicles, working alongside our response teams and a range of partners. We coordinate our approach so we can try and solve problems and reduce crime and disorder. This operation started from 30th June - we have had a number of arrests linked to retail crime, a smaller number of arrests for street crime (theft from the person) and have issued community protection warnings for anti-social behaviour.

We have shared some of these stories on the West Midlands Police Facebook page in the hope that they are informative and interesting and show the work that our neighbourhood officers do on a daily basis. One of our PCSO's spotted a male who looked familiar having been one of our key targets for burgling business premises. It was a surprise to see him as he thought he was in prison. Uniformed officers arrived a the scene a short time later and he was found to have absconded from prison. He was promptly back behind bars serving his sentence.

Theft

Shoplifting continues to be the highest crime type in the city centre. Officers are dealing with these offences almost daily and we see high numbers of offences over the summer period.

Yesterday, a male was arrested for a number of thefts at St John's retail park. We have been trying to arrest him for a couple of weeks and two of our officers from team 1 spotted him near to the shops. He had an interview and spent the night in custody having been charged. We had a female in custody who was arrested for shop theft and she was also charged and will appear before the court today. This is a nationwide problem and we are always trying to think of new ways to deter this offending. I have eluded to the support available in previous entries.

We see other thefts occurring in busy places - on a less regular basis we see thefts of mobile phones - usually when they have been left unattended.

We will continue to support our business community and respond to their calls as effectively as we can.