Burglary Tackled Head On In Northumbria
4th March 2015
Burglary crimes will always be given top priority in the Northumbria Police region with officers tackling the issue head on, Northumbria’s Police and Crime Commissioner has said.
Her promise followed a report by former Minister and Labour MP David Lammy claiming that property crime had been ‘decriminalised’ as police and courts turned a blind eye to what he described as an ‘epidemic’ sweeping Britain.
But Vera Baird, who made Reducing Crime and Community Confidence priorities of her Police and Crime plan, said this was not happening in the force region.
“Crime statistics published at the beginning of this year for the 12 months to September 2014, show both house and other burglaries have tumbled and this is in no small part due to the work carried out by the force and is a priority sent down by local residents in the Police and Crime plan.
“The force has been running Operation Soundwave since 2013 targeting opportunist criminals and promoting crime prevention advice.
“Within this operation initiatives have been running across the region tackling those people intent on taking any and every opportunity to steal property from the law abiding members of our communities.
“In addition to this officers work closely with our neighbourhoods providing them with help and information to assist people in protecting their property.”
Northumbria had a bigger than national fall in recorded crime with the region showing a 1% reduction as opposed to the national drop of 0.4%.
There were 661(19%) fewer house burglaries and 879 (17%) other burglaries, including garages and sheds.
“We have the confidence of our communities that we will investigate any crime they report to us as shown by recent figures which showed an increase in the number of sexual offences reported to the force,” the Commissioner said.
“Every crime has a victim and while we are not complacent by the results of our efforts so far, which I can assure communities will continue, we will ensure that people continue to have confidence in the force to make those reports.”
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