CHIEF SUPERINTENDENT JIM MCGINTY

Little Park Street operational command unit covers the centre of Coventry, as well as the Hillfields, Coundon and Tile Hill areas of the city. It includes a First Division football club and a major city centre shopping area and is also home to the Sky Dome, one of the largest multi-entertainment centres in the Midlands. It also contains a rapidly expanding university that occupies a large proportion of the city centre and attracts students from across the country and around the world.

Reducing house burglaries
In every year since 1997-98 the OCU has reduced the number of homes being burgled. In total, domestic burglaries have been reduced by 43 per cent during this period, which means there are now approximately 740 fewer victims every year. By any standards this is a remarkable achievement and one that has contributed significantly to an improved quality of life for the citizens of Coventry.

Robbery
While many other areas of the country have experienced a dramatic increase in the number of robberies, the OCU has achieved a reduction of four per cent over the last year. This is also good news for the people of Coventry and demonstrates real progress in tackling this particularly difficult area of police work.

For example, the City Centre Company uses daily tasking and patrol strategy information provided by police officers to direct the attention of its own staff and the CCTV cameras.

In addition, a police officer has been appointed to work with Coventry University as a student crime reduction officer. This initiative was set up following extensive work with university students and aims to reduce the vulnerability of all young people who use the city centre.

Door staff who are properly trained and licensed will add to the safety and security of people visiting licensed premises and reduce the demand on police by helping to curb anti-social behaviour.

Licensed premises throughout the city centre continue to use ‘drug safes’ to deal with the low grade drugs found on people. Although this initiative provides pubs and clubs with some support and regulation, it does not alter our strict policy on people who deal in illegal drugs.

We have continued to pursue and arrest drug dealers, using informants and undercover operations and, as a result of our work with other agencies, to remove local drugs dealers from the streets

A more recent development was a successful bid to The Terrence Higgins Trust for a needs assessment worker, the first in the country outside London, to divert prostitutes in the Hillfields area away from their anti-social activity. Helping them to find other ways of generating an income will not only reduce the anti-social impact of prostitution on the community, but will also help reduce the number of drug-related and robbery offences linked to it.

Reducing local problems
Becoming closer to the people of Coventry and dealing with local problems is at the heart of what we seek to achieve and these aims are supported by the way officers are tasked on a daily basis.

Officers are directed to certain locations not only to deal with crime and disorder hotspots, but also simply to be seen, to engage with people and provide more visible reassurance. For example, they may visit specific post offices at times when local residents are collecting their allowances.

The number of officers provided by the Government’s Crime Fighting Fund has been further increased. There are now 28 officers addressing local issues on the city centre and Hillfields sectors, where they focus on reducing crime and disorder through community partnerships.

Reducing youth offending
Preventing and detecting robberies committed by young people against other young people has been a particular issue for us and, following the appointment of a student crime reduction officer, we are now looking at ways to include schoolchildren in our focus.

Operation Scallywag, which has addressed the links between truancy and incidents of shoplifting during school hours and is centred on schoolchildren, has proved successful in reducing instances of theft. Along with our partners, we are looking to expand the scheme to focus attention on truanting children who may be drawn into committing crime, or become victims of crime themselves.

Increasing trust and confidence among ethnic minorities
The OCU is represented on bodies such as the Coventry Racial Equality Council, the Coventry Anti-Harassment Forum and the Coventry Asylum Seekers Steering Group.

In addition, officers hold local surgeries where asylum seekers can call in to discuss their problems and concerns.

There have been no major instances of racial tension and, following 11 September, we have increased our efforts to provide visible reassurance to various ethnic minority groups. This met with widespread approval and strengthened our relationship with groups representing residents, temporary refugees and asylum seekers.