Police Information

Making Good Progress

Thu, September 27, 2001

Source: Sussex Police Authority

The Force must work hard to reverse last years increase in Robbery.

Making good progress

The Force must work hard to reverse last year's increase in robbery, Deputy Chief Constable Maria Wallis told the July meeting of the Police Authority.

But she told members that performance generally in 2000-01 "gave room to acknowledge some considerable success."

The publication of the national crime figures, two days before the Authority meeting, enabled Sussex performance to be compared with other forces and helped indicate where further resources needed to be put. The key messages for Sussex from the national figures were that:

• We have put the brake on rising crime, with an increase of just 0.3% in the year to March.
• Our 11% drop in domestic burglaries, for the second year running, was well above the national average, and meant 1,100 fewer victims of burglary in Sussex last year.
• Our increase in recorded violent crime (2.9%) was well below the national average (4.3%); and, although we missed our 69% detection target, our 59% detection rate for violent crime was well above the 55% national average.

However Mrs Wallis told the Authority: "We do need to look at violent crime very carefully and to keep working at robbery."

She said robbery needed to be kept in perspective. They numbered barely 1,000 a year in Sussex - less than 1% of all crime - and many of those involved young people and mobile phones. But she agreed with Dr James Walsh that robbery did leave people worried, and was an important factor in increasing fear of crime.

A report from the Authority's Best Value Steering Group described the increase in robberies - up 21.7% against a 6% reduction target last year - as "especially disappointing."

In a July press release to accompany the crime figures Mrs Wallis pointed out that for the first time divisional crime performance figures were now available on the Sussex Police website. She said: "The good news is that we are already starting to see further significant improvements in Sussex Police performance since April. I am determined that this will continue, and that we will achieve greater consistency of performance across all our divisions. "

Last year Sussex was hit by an unusually high number of major crime inquiries, and this workload did take its toll on our performance because it took so many police officers away from their day-to-day duties. We need to ensure we have the right balance between priority crimes and total crime, including the many, more minor offences which have such a large impact on overall crime figures."

Outgoing Sussex Police Authority chairman Mrs Margaret Johnson said: "We are delighted with the continued progress being made in areas such as burglary to people's homes and will continue to monitor Force performance closely to ensure that the slowdown in overalll crime continues. "

The Police Authority fully endorses the Deputy Chief Constable's comments, and will do all that it can to support the Force in ensuring further progress is made in all areas."