Monday, November 20, 2006

Crime Partnership is definately in vogue now!

Sixteen arrests in Simonside!

It seems that since I started blogging about the lack of activity in the area of Crime Partnerships in South Tyneside the whole programme has taken off in a big way! The Shields Gazette reports today of a huge police and Council operation having taken place at the weekend on the Simonside Estate in South Shields. 11 men and 5 women were arrested for a variety of offences including possession of drugs, and a large quantity of cash was also found.

The police teams were accompanied by members of South Tyneside Council's Anti-Social Behaviour Unit and officers from South Tyneside Homes in an operation mirroring those that have previously taken place in Newcastle and North Tyneside. These operations are planned to take into account the benefits produced for the wider community in a troubled estate and to restore the public's confidence in Northumbria Police's Community efforts; local beat managers would have been instrumental in gathering evidence and supporting the local community in their efforts to reduce anti-social behaviour and improving the living conditions for hundreds of council tenants. Teams from South Tyneside Homes, the council's arms length housing management organisation, will have visited the addresses of those arrested, and others, to issue official agreed behavioural contracts, or to threaten the imposition of "demoted tenancies" ; this backing up of police action is to be applauded, it's just what we needed to see.

However, the whole exercise may have been in vain if figures published in the Newcastle Journal this morning are correct. 54% of those found in possession of illegal drugs were given nothing more than a caution by Northumbria Police, and 13% of offenders who admitted to more serious crimes were also let off with a caution!

If we are at last entering into an era of real meaningful crime partnerships then surely the public deserve a better response than this!

Links

Shields Gazette
The Journal

# posted by Curly : 6:55 pm