States of Jersey Police: Annual Performance Report 2010.

STATES OF JERSEY

STATES OF JERSEY POLICE: ANNUAL PERFORMANCE REPORT 2010

Presented to the States on 21st July 2011 by the Minister for Home Affairs

STATES GREFFE

2011   Price code: C  R.96

STATES OF JERSEY POLICE

ANNUAL PERFORMANCE REPORT 2010

CONTENTS

Page Foreword by the Chief Officer  2 Policing Jersey in 2010  3 Key Comparisons  5 Road Safety  7 What the Public Say  8 2010 Statistics  11

FOREWORD BY THE CHIEF OFFICER

It gives me great pleasure to present the States of Jersey Police Annual Report for 2010.

Given that this report looks back and reflects on the policing of Jersey under David Warcup and his team, I would like to pay tribute to their achievements in delivering some excellent results on behalf of our community.

In the five months I have now spent with the Force, I have been struck not only by the skills and professionalism of my officers and staff but also by the scope of the duties they perform. With an establishment  of  just  over  300  staff,  the  organisation  must  manage  the  same  breadth  of responsibilities as Police Forces up to two hundred times its size. The volume of work may not be the same but the standards required are just as demanding, whether we are called upon to protect vulnerable  people,  police  large  public  events,  respond  to  emergencies,  protect  our  community against terrorism or investigate financial crime. The unstinting capacity of managers and staff to meet these diverse challenges is admirable.

I  am  conscious  that  the  past  few  years  have  been  difficult  and  challenging  for  the  Force. Notwithstanding  these  issues,  it  is  noteworthy  that  the  Force's  performance,  both  in  terms  of reducing  crime  and  maintaining  public  confidence,  has  proven  remarkably  resilient.  Looking forward, the time has now come to make a fresh start and build upon these foundations.

My promise to the people of Jersey is quite simple. A strongly customer-focused approach to policing will be the hallmark of our service. Our commitment to engage with the public is not just about putting more officers on the beat. They are there to provide a friendly, approachable and professional service. Our reputation is built upon their actions.

At the same time, the Comprehensive Spending Review inevitably means that our resources are getting tighter. Our officers cannot be everywhere at once. As an organisation, we must give them the best possible opportunities to make  a difference. That means understanding the needs  and priorities of our community, putting officers where they are needed most and targeting the criminals who cause the most harm.

Getting these things right means training and equipping our officers with the skills to do the job to the best of their ability. It requires a performance culture that helps us make informed decisions about how to maintain or improve results. We also need to make the most of opportunities to work with our partners. The Honorary Police provide an invaluable contribution to community safety and I look  forward to exploring opportunities for the future with them.  All these issues are about managing organisational change and embedding knowledge and skills for the future amongst future leaders within the Force. To that end, I am particularly pleased that two highly respected officers, each with over 30 years policing experience will soon join the States of Jersey Police command team as Superintendents.

I am relishing the challenges that lie before us and believe we can deliver even higher levels of achievement in the future.

Mike Bowron QPM

POLICING JERSEY IN 2010

Jersey has always enjoyed relatively low levels of crime and States of Jersey Police are constantly working to make our community even safer. Since 2004, crime levels have fallen by nearly 25%. In terms of real day-to-day experience, that means about a thousand fewer people and businesses becoming victims of crime.

Our low crime rates make Jersey one of the safest places in the British Isles to live or visit. This doesn't happen by accident. In order to maintain this impressive record of community safety, States of Jersey Police must keep delivering results – deploying officers where they can make the most difference  in  preventing  crime  and  anti-social  behaviour,  maintaining  high  detection  rates  and relentlessly targeting the criminals who pose the greatest threat to our community. We constantly seek to improve the way we use our resources to deliver the levels of safety that our community has come to expect. These are some of the key initiatives and changes introduced during 2010 -

• We began to explore better ways of engaging with local communities across Jersey by giving five  of  our  Inspectors  specific  responsibility  for  different  parts  of  the  Island.[1]  They  have responsibility for building relationships with their communities and working in partnership with the Honorary Police to identify and resolve community safety issues.
• We adopted a new disruption policy designed to prevent offending and help protect public safety.  This  approach  involves  personally  visiting  suspects  who  are  the  subject  of  current intelligence to advise them of our potential interest in their activities.
• We implemented a new Prolific and Priority Offender Strategy. This intelligence-led approach identifies key offenders who are of current concern and makes them a priority for targeted policing effort.
• We introduced a Major and Serious Crime Investigation Policy and redefined the incidents that would fall within this category in order to help bring more perpetrators to justice.
• We  created  a  Prisoner  Handling  Team  from  within  existing resources  to help manage  and improve the investigation of less serious crime whilst also enabling beat officers to get back out on patrol.
• We established a new Offender Management Unit in preparation for the implementation of new sex offender legislation in 2011. Their role is to risk assess and manage potentially dangerous persons living in the community.
• We secured additional resources for the Joint Financial Crimes Unit which will further increase the efficiency and effectiveness of financial crime investigation in Jersey.

CRIME IN JERSEY 2010

2010 proved to be another successful year in maintaining Jersey's enviable record of community safety, despite the potential pressures of population growth and economic recession. [2]

4,554  crimes  were  recorded  in  2010.  Changes  to  our  crime  recording  procedures  make  direct comparisons with 2009 difficult but it is estimated that, on a like-for-like basis, crime would have been about 7% down.[3]  

Figure 1: Crime Categories 2010

Types of Offending  

Offences against

the Person Offences against Figure  1  shows  a  breakdown of  crime  28% Property

committed in Jersey during 2010. This  23% pattern  remained  constant  compared  to

2009.[4]  

• Acquisitive  crime  covers  offences  Drugs Offences 5%

such  as  theft,  burglary,  fraud  or

forgery  offences.  Overall,  this

category accounted for about 43% of  Other

all  recorded  crime  in  the  Island  Acquisitive Crime 1%

during 2010.  43%

• Offences  against  the  Person  covers  all  forms  of  physical  and  sexual  assault  as  well  as harassment, child cruelty and neglect.
• Offences Against Property covers offences such as arson and vandalism to buildings, vehicles and other property. Malicious damage to vehicles remains the most common offence within this category and continues to account for nearly one in eight of all crimes recorded locally.
• Drugs Offences include a range of crimes involved in the supply and possession of illegal drugs. The volume of drugs offences tends to reflect changes in the policing of drug crime more than real changes in its incidence. During 2010, fewer people were caught in possession of personal quantities of drugs but we remained focussed on the drugs supply networks. The overall value of drugs seizures by the Police was £760,360.54. This is a similar amount to that seized in 2009.

Nearly two-thirds of crime committed in Jersey in 2010 occurred in St Helier. This is to be expected given that the town is the residential and business hub of the Island with a busy night time economy.

Fewer than two crimes per week were again recorded in seven of Jersey's 11 other parishes. This overall profile has remained largely unchanged for several years.

KEY COMPARISONS

People tend to worry most about crimes they can envisage happening to them, such as burglary, physical violence, robbery, or vehicle crime. This section shows how Jersey fared with regard to these crimes in 2010.

In the 2010 Jersey Annual Social Survey (JASS 2010), we also asked to what extent people worried about some of these types of crime. Where comparable questions are asked, it is also interesting to note the findings from the British Crime Survey (BCS).[5]

Burglary

352 burglaries were recorded in Jersey during 2010.

• This was the second lowest number of burglaries recorded in the Island in the last 10 years.
• Only 126 of these burglaries involved an offender gaining entry into somebody's house or flat.[6] 60% of these premises were insecure at the time.
• Compared to the 43 Police Force areas in England and Wales, Jersey had the second lowest number of burglaries per 1,000 population.
• Jersey's  burglary  figures  are  sensitive  to  the  activities  of  a  small  number  of  prolific offenders. There were four key spates of offending during 2010. Although each was short- lived they accounted for nearly a quarter of the burglaries committed over the whole year. Each of these spates came to an abrupt halt as the criminals concerned were brought to justice.

The findings from JASS 2010 highlight how secure people feel in Jersey. Only 4% of people said they were very worried that they might become a victim of burglary in the next 12 months. This sense of security has been sustained in the five years since the question was first posed in JASS. In England and Wales, 10% of respondents to the BCS expressed high levels of worry about burglary.

Violent Crime

Definitions of assault in Jersey are different compared to England and Wales and so it is difficult to benchmark  violent  crime  rates  with  other  Force  areas.  The  changes  in  recording  practices implemented  in  2010  also  mean  that  like-for-like  comparisons  with  previous  years  are  not practicable.[7]

Violence can be separated into two broad categories – that which occurs in public spaces and that which takes place in private, often in the home.

• 83 grave and criminal assaults were recorded as taking place in public places in Jersey during 2010. About a third of these incidents involved people who knew each other.
• 69  of  these  serious  assaults  occurred  in  the  night  time  74% of the cases of economy of St Helier. In 90% of these incidents the Police

identified a suspect and 74% resulted in prosecutions.  serious violence in the night time economy of

• 5la4s t syeeriaoru. sA a ssstraaunltgse rw gearien ecdo macmcietstes dt oi ns odmweeollnien'gss hionm Jee rasnedy  St Helier during 2010 committed a serious assault on just one occasion.  resulted in prosecutions
• 32 of the incidents that took place in homes were cases of domestic abuse between adults.

JASS 2010 again provided some insight into people's enhanced sense of personal safety in Jersey. Only 6% of people said they were very worried that they might become a victim of violent crime in the next 12 months.  In  England  and  Wales,  13%  of respondents to  the British  Crime  Survey expressed high levels of worry about violent crime.

Robbery

Robbery remains a rare offence in Jersey, with just six personal robberies being recorded in 2010 and  no  cases  of  businesses  being  robbed.  The  Island  had  a  lower  rate  of  robbery  per  1,000 population than any of the 43 Police Force areas in England and Wales.

Vehicle Crime  

In 2010, there was a 31% 335 vehicle crimes were recorded in Jersey during 2010.[8]  reduction in the number

• This was the second lowest number of such offences  of vehicles stolen or recorded in the Island since 2002.  taken without permission
• Compared to the 43 Police Force areas in England and Wales, Jersey had the third lowest number of vehicle crimes per 1,000 population
• The majority of the vehicles stolen or taken without permission were mopeds or motorbikes and most were located and returned to their owners.

Detecting Crime

Jersey's sanction detection rate' of 34% compares to a national average across England and Wales of 28% in 2009/10.[9] Not every case where the police identify who committed a crime results in a sanction detection. The overall clear up' rate in Jersey in 2010 was 39%.

ROAD SAFETY

States of Jersey Police and our Honorary Police colleagues maintained a strong pro-active road safety effort throughout 2010, identifying a total of nearly 3,250 motoring offences. The most common offences prosecuted are shown in Figure 2. [10]

DRINK-DRIVING: A NEW APPROACH Figure 2. Common Motoring Offences in 2010

Speeding 499 Our new disruption policy was used Vehicle insurance details 474 extensively to prevent drink-driving. Defective vehicle 340 About a third of all disruptions in 2010 Driving without due care and attention 324 were aimed at suspected drink-drivers. Mobile phone offences 301 None were subsequently involved in Driving licence offences 281 RTCs or caught through pro-active Drink driving checks. It is hoped that this approach

Traffic signal offences 119670 will help prevent drink-driving. During

2010, 61 drink-drivers were involved in Seat belt offences 140

RTCs. Another 136 were caught by pro- Failing to stop and report an accident 110 active policing

Overall, there were fewer road traffic collisions (RTCs) on Jersey's roads in 2010 and fewer people were  injured.  Sadly,  this  improvement  was  marred  by  an  increase  in  the  number of  incidents involving serious or fatal injuries.

• The overall number of RTCs resulting in injury fell by 7% from 349 in 2009 to 326;
• The overall number of people killed or injured fell by over 11% from 444 in 2009 to 394 ;
• Unfortunately, RTCs resulting in fatal or serious injury increased from 47 in 2009 to 62;
• Overall, three people died and 65 sustained serious injuries in 2010. 42% of these casualties were riding motorcycles or mopeds. 30% were pedestrians or cyclists. Most of the serious injuries consisted of broken bones but about one in five were considered to be potentially life threatening or changing.

This increase in the number of serious injury incidents does not reflect a rising trend across the whole year. The monthly average was actually consistent with previous years with the exception of two months, June and August, which accounted for over a third of the annual total. Analysis of those two  months  does  not  reveal  any  noticeable  patterns.  Only  three  of  the  21  incidents  involved dangerous  speeds,  another  five  involved  cyclists  with  no  other  motor  vehicle  being  involved. Prosecutions for motoring offences were only deemed appropriate or necessary in relation to four incidents. It is believed, therefore,  that the  high  figures  in  June and August of  2010  were  an unfortunate anomaly.

WHAT THE PUBLIC SAY

Successful policing is not only about bringing offenders to justice and reducing crime. It is just as important that –

• people feel safe at home and at work, or just when they are out and about in Jersey;
• the public feel confident in the police and believe their issues will be dealt with effectively;
• people who do need to call upon our help receive a high quality of service.

We have put measures in place to see if we are achieving these goals. In 2010 we participated in the independent Jersey Annual Social Survey (JASS) which asked around 3,200 households a series of questions about community safety and policing performance.

Perceptions of Safety

In JASS 2010, we asked two particular questions about perceived levels of safety in our community: How safe or unsafe do you consider your neighbourhood to be? [11]

87% of JASS respondents who expressed an opinion thought  Nearly nine out of ten their neighbourhoods were very or fairly safe. Whilst overall

perceptions  have  shown  little  change  since  2005,  more  Jersey residents think Islanders now believe their neighbourhood to be "very safe"  their neighbourhood is

and an increasing proportion of St Helier residents consider  safe

their neighbourhood to be very or fairly safe. (76% v 71%)

How safe or unsafe do you feel when visiting St Helier town centre at night?

Amongst those people who actually visit St Helier at night, 71% usually or always feel safe. This overall figure shows no change compared to 2009 but no significant change was expected within the space of a year. Increased perceptions of safety in the busy night time economy are more likely to materialise once a joined-up strategy is in place. Many towns and cities across the United Kingdom have  such  night  time  economy  strategies  which  involve  a  multi-agency  approach  to  address licensing, transport, town centre planning, policing and economic development issues. States of Jersey Police have been advocating such a strategy for several years. This issue is one of the key themes identified by the Steering Group responsible for delivery of Strategic Priority 7 of the States Strategic Plan

There is no comparable question in the British Crime Survey so it is difficult to put the JASS findings in context. There are, however, some English towns who have independently run similar survey questions in recent years. In Hounslow, for example, 21% of people said they felt safe in the town centre at night and 68% of respondents to a survey in Yeovil felt safe in their town centre after dark.

Confidence in the Police

JASS 2010 asked a series of questions about confidence in the Police. Where people expressed an opinion about the Force, they were very positive but one of the key things we have learnt is the need to engage better with our community. The results clearly show that many people did not feel sufficiently informed about policing to express an opinion and answered "Don't Know".

Strongly Agree Tend to Agree Tend to Disagree Strongly Disagree Don't Know

States of Jersey Police do a good job of policing J ersey I am confident I would receive a good service from  the States of

Jersey Police if I needed their assistance".

States of Jersey Police would listen to me if I had a concern about local community safety

"States of Jersey Police treat everyone fairly, reg

ardless of who they

are"

"States of Jersey Police treat me with respect if I have contact with them for any reason";

"States of Jersey Police can be relied upon to be t here if I need them"

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Excluding  the  "Don't  Know"  responses  from  the  analysis  also  86% of people are provides  an  insight  into  the  perceptions  of  people  who  feel

sufficiently informed to comment. It also provides the opportunity  confident that they

to take into account similar results from the British Crime Survey.  would receive a good Whilst different survey methodologies mean the results are not  service from States of directly comparable, they do help place some perspective on the

Jersey figures rather than viewing them in isolation.  Jersey Police

Quality of Service

During 2010, we also asked 2,245 victims of crime for their feedback on the quality of service we provided in responding to and dealing with their reported crime. Three indicators are used to monitor our performance in this respect.[13] The first two indicators relate to incident response:

The third element of the survey concerns feedback on the progress of the investigation:

The quality of service surveys also asks respondents how they rate the overall performance of States of  Jersey  Police  in  policing  Jersey.  89%  of  respondents  had  a  positive  opinion  about  our performance in 2010. 72% rated our overall performance as  

"good" or "very good".[14] Nearly nine out of ten

It is interesting to compare these findings with the results from  victims of crime in

the same question in the 2010 Jersey Annual Social Survey  2010 were positive

where 79% of respondents who expressed an opinion thought  about our performance the Force did a good job of policing Jersey.  in policing Jersey

Complaints against the Police

Full details of the handling of Police complaints are published in the annual report of the Jersey Police Complaints Authority. In 2010, there were 21 cases involving complaints made by members of the public against Police officers compared with 32 in 2009 and 39 in 2008.  

2010 STATISTICS

Financial Crime

Whilst States of Jersey Police perform the traditional roles of preventing and detecting local crime and maintaining order in the  Island, the  Service  also has a  key  role to play in  meeting the standards prescribed by the international community in the investigation of financial crime, terrorism financing and money laundering. This responsibility is performed by the Joint Financial Crimes Unit, whose functions include the sharing of intelligence on financial crime with other jurisdictions and the recovery of assets from criminal enterprises.

Custody

2,759 people were detained in Police custody in 2010. This figure includes people who were detained on several different occasions. Nine people were detained on 10 or more occasions and one person was arrested 20 times.

PPACE Searches

Under the Police Procedures and Criminal Evidence (Jersey) Law 2003 (PPACE) the Police are required to publish information on specific searches

Intimate Searches

One person was the subject of an intimate search conducted by a registered medical practitioner whilst detained in Police custody in 2010. The search was for concealed drugs but the result of the search was negative.

PPACE Vehicle Checks

No vehicle checks were conducted under Article 13 of the Police Procedures and Criminal Evidence (Jersey) Law 2003 in 2010

PPACE Stop and Search

The total numbers of searches in each month during 2010 for stolen articles, for offensive weapons and for other prohibited articles; and the total number of persons arrested as a consequence (figure in brackets) are as follows -

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