Annual Report 2023- 2024 - Page 7

Lancashire Constabulary invest in this area by focussing on prevention activity, ensuring quality investigations are conducted to a high standard, the relentless pursuit of offenders, and supporting victims of crime. Operation Defender continues as the overarching approach to tackling these crimes with a consistent approach adopted across Lancashire with additional activity from 2022/23.

This includes a commitment to attend the scene of every residential burglary and robbery reported across all areas of Lancashire to provide a consistent high-quality response for these crime types.

2023/24 Highlights

Op Defender

The Commissioner provided additional funding to support Op Defender, launched September 2022, to strengthen the Constabulary’s efforts to proactively target prolific offenders and help to ensure that anyone found guilty of this type of crime feels the full force of the law and has their day in court.

The Commissioner has also made significant investments into local policing teams. All areas of Lancashire now have dedicated neighbourhood policing teams and open police stations. This is following the investments made by the Commissioner to re-open stations and to bring back neighbourhood policing for every area.

The Commissioner is clear that there is always more to do, and he is working closely with the Chief Constable to ensure that Lancashire residents get the policing service they deserve and feel safe in their communities.

“…and they’ve had a real good crackdown on residential burglary, thanks to Operation Defender.”

Suella Braverman MP (in Parliament when Home Secretary)

Burglary Teams

The Commissioner has provided further investment into the development of dedicated Burglary Teams in every area of Lancashire. These are experienced detectives and staff whose role

is to investigate offences of residential burglary and ensure a high standard of oversight and investigation is provided to this area.

Training

Training has been undertaken of frontline officers and staff in crime scene preservation through a specialist ‘Crime Scene Training’ house. This ensures a suitable response and advice is provided to victims of crime at the scene and improves the opportunity for the identification of offenders through forensic examinations.

Visits

Neighbours of victims of residential burglary now receive a revisit from their local neighbourhood policing team to provide a ‘super cocooning’ approach to prevent near repeat victimisation and provide reassurance through the provision of crime prevention advice.

Reporting

There is now improved reporting through the development of a dedicated crime recording process that links police systems together and improves the report of offences enabling better analysis of crime patterns to support bringing offenders to justice.

Partnership

The country’s first Data Science Partnership with Lancaster University and the business sector has been developed with research into evidence-based approaches aimed at improving our targeting capabilities to reduce further victims of crime.

Nice2Share

In January 2024, the Commissioner supported Lancashire Constabulary in a new initiative asking the public to register their security cameras to a two-way community portal which acts like a digital neighbourhood watch.

Police in Lancashire have been using the NICE INVESTIGATE system since July 2021 which is a digital evidence management system where businesses have registered their CCTV and other recording devices into a community portal. This system details the location of potential video footage which can be requested for evidence leading to more efficient prosecutions of offenders.

When a crime is reported, the area can be scanned to search for potential video evidence and if a camera is identified, Lancashire Police can request the footage to be shared with them to support the investigation.

Nice2Share expands on this previous work by asking the general public to join the portal by registering their residential cameras to create a bigger directory of cameras available and covering more locations across the county. DPCC Andy Pratt MBE attended the business networking event and launch and so far more than 2,600 cameras have been registered across the West of the country, with a wider rollout planned for 2024.

Nice2Share is another way we’re working in partnership with businesses and residents to deliver what we’re all aiming for, less crime and safer communities. The Constabulary’s officers can’t be everywhere all the time and the public are so often the eyes and ears that help us stop criminals in their tracks.

Safer Streets

The Commissioner secured £820k from the Home Office through round five of the Safer Streets Fund.

He allocated funding to Pennine Lancashire, Blackpool, West Lancashire and Lancaster to make areas feel safer, support enforcement and address local concerns.

Funding will support crime prevention measures such as better CCTV or street lighting, or local community projects with a particular focus on driving down antisocial behaviour, preventing more burglaries and making streets safer for women and girls.

Op Vulture – Retail Crime Action Plan

In October 2023, the NPCC published the Retail Crime Action Plan and in March 2024, Lancashire Police undertook several Safer Business Action Days across the county, to launch Operation Vulture, the force’s response to shoplifting in the county.

In the financial year 2022-23, there were 9,123 recorded crimes of shoplifting. This is an increase of 16.7% when compared to the previous financial year. Such retail crimes might also be accompanied by assaults and threats of violence by offenders, putting retail owners and staff in danger.

This operation will see Lancashire Police increase their patrolling in areas identified as hotspots for retail crime and increasing their visibility in these locations. During these patrols, officers will be creating and building on partnerships with retailers in these areas to better share intelligence, get a deeper understanding of retail crime and identify more offenders.

This type of work has already been carried out by Lancashire Police for many years now. Officers have created strong relationships with local businesses to help reduce retail crime in their store.

Op Vulture entails:

• Police attendance at the scene for retail crime will be prioritised in the following circumstances:
• 1. Where violence has been used
• 2. Where an offender has been detained
• 3. Where evidence needs to be promptly secure which can only be done in person by police personnel (e.g., securing forensic evidence)
• Exploring all reasonable lines of enquiry – This applies to all reported crimes whether officers attend at the scene in an emergency situation, on a delayed response or as a desk-based investigation.
• Prolific or repeat offenders – a proactive approach to identify and target repeat or prolific offenders so that long term plans can be put in place.
• Retailer guidance – The ASB, Prevention and Problem-Solving Command has created a Retail Crime Pack.