Last week I attended a packed meeting in Middleton Hall, Dinnington. Every chair was occupied and people were standing around the sides and the back of the hall. It had been called by local councillors and the MP for Rother Valley to discuss anti-social behaviour (ASB) and acquisitive crimes – burglary and car theft – and the police response.

People were angry and frustrated and soon made their feelings, and the depth of their feelings known. While crime was mentioned, most of the evening was taken up with accounts of ASB, especially ASB involving young people, and what was seen as the lack of an adequate police response. It is the persistent nature of ASB and the seeming inability of anyone to make a difference that was making people angry and depressed. This focus on ASB rather than crime is often mirrored in other meetings across the county, though people demand less talk – about strategies or plans – and more action. They want to see results.

It is never easy to explain the role of a Police and Crime Commissioner on these occasions! There are always people present who think that I run the police service and can give operational orders to police officers. But once we were past that, I listened to what people had to say and responded with what I knew, what I could do and what the police were doing and planning to do.

As it happened, my staff had made a successful bid to the Home Office for funding to increase foot patrols of both police and local authority wardens in 48 ASB hot spot areas across South Yorkshire – Operation Civitas. Dinnington is one of the hot spot areas, so I was able to speak about additional patrolling that is and will be taking place in those parts of the town where incidents have mainly been reported. This is additional officer time achieved through overtime and will not mean switching resources from somewhere else.

The discussion ranged widely, but at one point a man angrily read aloud some statistics which, he said, showed that in Dinnington only 2% of crimes led to a charge and this was a worse rate than anywhere else in the county, and so proof that Dinnington was being neglected by the police. I thought I would follow this up! Was it true? Why are the figures so low?

The first thing to say is that not every offender is charged for their crime. In some cases it is more appropriate to give someone what is called an out of court disposal – such as a caution or warning. This might, for example, be a young person in trouble for the first time. So the 2% figure is a little misleading unless explained further.

My staff couldn’t find anything in the public domain that resembled the figures the man was quoting, but we have looked at the latest statistics for Dinnington and South Yorkshire – January to June 2023. (These are from a ‘live’ system – they could change a little if something gets added or modified.) We have then compared them with England and Wales using publicly available data from the Office for National Statistics, April-June. These are the results:

Dinnington Ward

Charge 4%

Out of court disposal 4%

No suspect identified 48%

Insufficient evidence to progress 43%

Other 1%

All SYP Districts

Charge 8%

Out of court disposal 4%

No suspect identified 48%

Insufficient evidence to progress 38%

Other 2%

England and Wales

Charge 7%

Out of court disposal 4%

No suspect identified 48%

Insufficient evidence to progress 37%

Other 4%

What we can say, therefore, is: Dinnington’s 4% charge rate is half the 8% rate of SYP districts as a whole (which is better than the country’s 7%) and there were a further 4% of out of court disposals.

So why is Dinnington’s charge rate half that of all SYP districts? The man in the audience concluded that this was because the police were not focusing on Dinnington as much as elsewhere. Having thought about it, I think another explanation is much more likely. It has to do with those 48% of crimes that have no suspect identified.

Charging rates vary according to the type of crime. So, for example, in the case of a murder there is often more for the investigators to go on – a murder weapon; witnesses; suspects; blood and DNA; fingerprints. But with a residential burglar it can be very different – the thief wears gloves and a balaclava and leaves no fingerprints or DNA; he is impossible to identify on cctv; he comes in a vehicle with false number plates; there are no witnesses; and so on. I guess that there are more crimes of this sort in the Dinnington area and this results in lower charge rates.

But the converse of this is that areas that do suffer from higher levels of acquisitive crimes and ASB – hot spots – are getting more attention and increased patrolling. I expect levels of both to fall in the coming months. I have said that I will go back in a few months time to see what progress has been made.

Setting an example

Some members of the audience at the meeting in Middleton Hall spoke with some passion about the behaviour of some local young people. They did not treat the police – or anyone in authority – with respect, they said. They commented particularly on the foul language that they had heard hurled at police officers by young people in the street. It was ‘disrespectful’, ‘shameful’, ‘disgusting’.

It did seem to me – though I didn’t say so – that it was unlikely that the young people had invented the words or the behaviours they were showing. But if we are to shift their language and behaviour we all have a responsibility to behave better towards others. Yet all last week we were hearing about the behaviours and language used by political advisers, ministers, MPs and sometimes civil servants at the highest level, during the Johnson administration. What a working environment! It received wide coverage and I doubt whether there is a young person in the country who doesn’t know the language and conduct which seems to have been the common currency of that particular period.

I rather hoped that the MP at the meeting might have offered some small apology on behalf of the politicians who were complicit in setting such appalling examples, but none came.

ASB is blighting all our communities. ASB involving young people is one aspect. Disrespect and inappropriate language is part of that. We will continue to struggle to bring about change locally if those at the top can’t set a better example.

Time to re-set the dial.

Keeping safe – a sideways look

The primary objective of the police force is to keep our communities safe. Similarly, a primary objective of a government is keeping its citizens safe. This is why I think the Israeli government ought to speak not about its right to defend itself, but its duty to keep its people safe. (You can, after all, choose not to assert your rights; but you cannot choose to opt out of your duty.)

This would bring greater clarity to what is currently at stake when people call for a ceasefire. How would a (quite possibly, unilateral) ceasefire contribute towards keeping the Israeli people safe – safe, that is, from yet more terrorist attacks in the future? After the Hamas attacks, feeling and being safe is the pre-requisite for allowing the Israelis to take steps towards the two state solution that alone offers safety and security to Palestinians as well.

AI future

To tick: I’m not a human.

Stay safe