Throw out the targets, Camden needs more bobbies on the beat!

Last night I attended the Swiss Cottage Safer Neighbourhoods meeting, a recent innovation of the Metropolitan Police Force...whoops I mean Metropolitan Police Service - the difference being that now if your local constable fails to deliver your justice on time and with a smile on their face, you are encouraged to put a complaint in their comments box.

Seriously though, these meetings are a great idea and you do feel like you're being given an opportunity to air your grievances to those who need to hear it most and hold them accountable for it. The panel is composed of two PCs and two PCSOs and is chaired by a sergeant, but appears to be run clandestinely by Waitrose where two of the panel members work as managers. Their secret identity was only revealed last night when one of the audience members questioned the chain's security policy following her grand-daughter's harrassment by another customer only to be assiduously rebuffed by them as if they had been personally accused of the offence themselves. On the other hand, this tiny hall, temporarily converted into a bastion of local democracy, was inundated by free food and drink to encourage people to attend and stay after...all courtesy of Waitrose of course, so the jury's still out. Nevertheless, I am eagerly awaiting the day I see one of their Ocado delivery vans engaged in a high speed car chase down Finchley Road with makeshift police sirens loosely attached to the roof.

However, the meeting was not all poops and giggles. There were many complaints that the police were not doing enough to tackle street violence, gang culture and general acts of agression, wreckless disregard and intimidation ranging from loud drunkards to erratic drivers. Indeed, several members of the audience each had a story to tell about how they had suffered over the last few months and their displeasure at the police service's perceived unresponsiveness. Their frustration was exacerbated when the panel reviewed their top three target crimes in ascending order of priority, identifying where local police efforts should be concentrated - robbery 3rd, motor vehicle crime 2nd and burglary top of the list - only to exclude anti-social behaviour or even violence against the person entirely from this list. When called up on this, they insisted that it would not be a practical use of police resources.

Now this would seem quite a shocking statement to make at the best of times to an audience that had just raised anti-social behaviour as their biggest concern, but consider in addition to this the Met's own crime figures for August of this year and it becomes simply astonishing. For example 'Violence against the person' accounted for 510 of 2,903 crimes committed in Camden, exceeding the combined totals of robbery (79) and motor vehicle crime (382) over the same period. Nevertheless the panel defended their position on the grounds that the police service is so small that the only way it can effectively tackle crime is to isolate key areas where crimes most frequently occur and post officers there to ward off and arrest criminals. Similarly, they have targets for dealing with crimes most frequently reported which also help to determine where their officers will be posted. The problem with tackling anti-social behaviour and even violence and intimidation therefore is that a) it can, and does, happen anywhere in around the area and b) due to the sporadic nature of such crimes, people don't always report them, especially if it's just a case of being disturbed or scared by noisy louts where the offence is more psychological than physical, as there is little the police can do for them after the incident has occured.

As taken aback as I was by the frankness of the panel in responding to these questions as they essentially refused to take any action on the grounds that doing so would confound their complex targeting system, I also had a lot of sympathy for them. They were, after all, just doing their best with what they had and indeed had been successful in overseeing a reduction in crime on the same period last year. However, the meeting did open my eyes to the real problem which lies in the the transformation of the police from a force to a service. Where once, the police might have guarded their respective communities through a decisive presence on the streets in the form of the revered bobby on the beat with the sole aim of enforcing the law, they are now constrained by targets, regulations and endless paperwork where the aims are now to offer value for money and avoid getting sued. Don't get me wrong, I have no wish to see Judge Dredd chairing the next Safer Neighbourhoods meeting, but when you consider the closest thing we have to regular bobby patrols these days are Police Community Support Officers who seem to only just have the power to give offenders a stern talking to and a mean stare as if to say "you're lucky that this uniform gives me as much power to arrest you as that guy from the Village People, otherwise you'd be in big trouble", then you've got to wander, surely there's got to be a better way.