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Review of police system finds crimes not logged
Chief Superintendent Bob Sanderson
SIX out of seven offences were dealt with correctly by police call handlers in South Yorkshire in a sample checked as part of a nationwide review.
A total of 120 incidents logged by call handlers were checked by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and they found 16 had been wrongly ‘closed’ without crimes being recorded.
The Inspectorate, which monitors and inspects the efficiency and effectiveness of the police service, said the findings give ‘some cause for concern’.
But it said it was confident the force had the ‘leadership, innovation and commitment to build on its current achievements for crime and incident data quality’.
The inspection praised South Yorkshire Police for using a single centre for call handling, despatch and crime recording - and said staff coped with high demand so calls were not ‘lost’ and there was no delay in reporting them.
The data collected as part of the review showed that when converting incidents to crimes the information was transferred ‘accurately’ from the incident system to the crime recording system.
In the majority of cases, enough detail had been recorded on the system to offer assurance they had been correctly classified.
But it found in most cases, once an incident had been converted to a crime, follow-up activity by officers was not recorded - making auditing more difficult.
The report said the data collected showed South Yorkshire Police’s contact with victims, to update them on the progress of their cases, was ‘very good’.
The report said: “Staff involved in call handling, despatch and crime recording were all clear about the importance of data quality and were regularly assessed on their compliance with force and national standards.
“HMIC found strong arrangements at a senior level to secure the quality of incident and crime data, supported by helpful plans, policies and strategies.”
A police spokesman said the small sample size checked was less than half of one day’s recorded crime but added they will use the findings to help further improve data quality.
Assistant Chief Constable Bob Sanderson said: “We are already working to achieve ever more accurate incident and crime data and this report will help us to deliver that. We accept there is more work to do but the report demonstrates we have a very sound base of strong crime and incident data management.
“We will continue to improve data quality through strong audit and governance arrangements.”
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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Comments
There are 9 comments to this article
Page 1 of 1
adenuf
Saturday, January 28, 2012 at 07:55 PMWhat annoys me most (above the farcical waste of front line officers time) is the cost invloved in both the running of and investigation of crime recording. It is one of many cash and resource sapping elements which blight modern Policing. I would be interested to know how much it costs to run what must be a massive department whose sole purpose is to record crimes. Couple this to the cost of having HMIC review it and I bet it's a pretty penny. For every front line officer there must be 10 (civilian and Police) staff reviewingrecordinganalysingcritcising what heshe does. Little wonder the Police are unable to provide the service the public deserve, there's a lot to be said for adopting Policing attitudes of old!
Archangel
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 05:53 PMOK, but 6 out of seven multiplied by tens of thousands?
joseramirez
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 02:22 PMWhat a shock! Who'd have believed it?
TW19
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 12:03 PMI am not surprised. I was attacked in the centre of Sheffield in December 2010. I wasn't badly injured physically, but shocked that everyone passing by ignored me. After I got home, I didn't go out for weeks. I reported it later to the police, as a disability hate crime, but heard nothing from them.
seenitall
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 11:37 AMWe need more of the big and not too brainy coppers of yore who put the fear of God up most of my generation after the slightest misdemenour and used their loaf at what was a crime. I suppose the "rhino-whip" incidents has much to answer for!
Reason
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 11:09 AMTotally agree....the rot set in when they started employing senior officers who are 'managers' ....NOT coppers. I'm not saying the old days were the best as there was a lot of bad things even then, but just because one or two things needed changing, was no excuse for sweeping all the old fashioned priciples of policing out of the door.
Tawny
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 11:07 AMIs there any wonder that earlier in the week there could be a big announcement about crime falling? I am not surprised when the figures that are being used are incorrect. What an absolute disgrace. What we want and need are police out on the beat not a load of ‘pen-pushers’ massaging the figures so that they look good.
Sheffielderinthesouth
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 02:46 AMAlso can I just add - By saying system I do not mean SYP'S computer systems - I mean the entire system of crime recording nationwide :)
Sheffielderinthesouth
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 02:45 AMWhat a load of absolute rubbish! Let me assure the public that this STUPID "system" for crime recording is not wanted by any front line police officer. If an officer attends a report of criminal damage to a window in certain circumstances if the damage is at a "point of entry" i.e. a stone has hit your door and smashed the glass in it then an officer HAS to crime this as an offence of attempted Burglary - not criminal damage, or indeed in the good old days before this stupidity nothing at all (and could go round and speak to whoever had done it and get it sorted the old fashioned way!) If an incident comes in as a "crime" related incident such as a theft which it then transpires after an officer investigating it that it infact did not happen that job can still not be closed until a "Crime Related Incident" number is created - this, as you can imagine all takes time and means an officer has to spend even longer sat behind a computer to please some politicians in Westminster who have no idea about policing instead of being out on the streets. So frustrating!
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