Police praised for crime cuts and targets

At a meeting of the South Worcestershire Community Policing Board yesterday, Supt Rod Reynolds said it was the first time in three years the division had met all its targets.

"There's usually one area where we haven't met a target, but this time we've ticked all the boxes," said Supt Reynolds.

According to the latest crime figures, between Thursday, April 1 and Sunday, October 31, there were 2,708 incidents of violent crime in the south Worcestershire division against a target of 2,792.

Detection of violent crime was also better than expected, at 75 per cent, compared to a target of 63 per cent.

There were 704 recorded burglaries compared to a predicted number of 777, and of the actual offences, 24 per cent were detected compared to a forecast of 19 per cent.

Fewer robberies

There were also fewer robberies - 72 compared to a predicted 97 and of those, 43 per cent were detected against an expected 33 per cent.

"We are now at - or about at - our full constable numbers and this is reflected here," said Supt Reynolds.

"Our workforce is maturing in its ability and we're starting to see an increase in our performance."

Committee chairman, Alwyn Davies, praised police and said: "This is an improvement on what we had before. They are excellent statistics and may they long continue."

However, the number of complaints levelled at south Worcestershire police rose 223 per cent, from 31 between April and September last year to 100 this year.

Alarming

Supt Reynolds said that while the figure might look alarming at first glance, it was important to note that the process for recording and managing complaints had been changed resulting in a higher number of "complaints".

"We now record everything, so for example, if a member of the public writes a letter to us complaining about something, we will record that as a complaint and deal with it - it now covers everything and can be against the organisation as well as individual officers," he said.