Thursday, October 29, 2009

Safer Neighbourhood Teams Celebrate Fourth Birthday



It was back in October 2005 that the council, working with the local police, accelerated the investment into community policing and brought forward the borough-wide roll out of Safer Neighbourhood police teams.


Hackney became the 2nd local authority in the country to have a complete deployment of the teams. Each team is responsible for policing in one of Hackney's 19 wards and is headed up by a police sergeant and is comprised of PCs and PCSOs.


In Haggerston there is an additional team dedicated to the Shoreditch Triangle and the night time economy.


The result has been the second fastest drop in crime in London. Crime has reduced so that there are 10,000 fewer crimes each year, with overall crime down over 35%. Confidence in the police has increased massively and the police now sit down with residents in each ward to discuss and agree policing priorities in each community. This is not the police paying lip service to local people - residents who attend the meeting really do get to set the priorities for local police - in recent meetings in Haggerston this has ranged form drug dealing to cycle theft to peiing in the street.


To find out more about our local Sergeant, Jeremy Hinde, and his team click here.

No comments: