ESSEX Police has written to councils to say officers will be attending fewer anti-social behaviour cases because of cuts.<\/p>\n
Assistant Chief Constable Julia Wortley wrote to all local authorities across the county to explain that 97% of ASB calls assessed as low and medium risk – such as dog fouling, litter dropping or noise complaints – will not be attended by a police officer.<\/p>\n
The letter highlighted the pressures on police finances in the face of cuts to spending budgets.<\/p>\n
It read: \u201cPolice finances have come under the same pressures over the last five years as those of local authorities.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor Essex Police those pressures have been made more acute because funding per head on policing in the county is below average compared with other police forces in England and Wales.\u201d<\/p>\n
There were 56,506 incidents of ASB recorded in Essex between April 1 last year and 31 March 2015.<\/p>\n
Of these, only 1,500 were assessed as high risk by Essex Police.<\/p>\n
Therefore this increased demand on services is \u201cexacerbating the financial challenge\u201d faced by Essex Police.<\/p>\n
Despite saving \u00a372.5 million since 2010, the force needs to find a further \u00a360 million over the next five years.<\/p>\n
The force says that this 97% of incidents that are low or medium risk has created an \u201cunsustainable\u201d demand on resources and \u201cjeopardises the quality of our response to high risk cases and to other emergencies\u201d, according to ACC Julia Wortley.<\/p>\n
A spokesman for Essex Police said: \u201cACC Wortley\u2019s letter to local authorities was clear in stating that only 3% of the calls relating to anti-social behaviour received by Essex Police are classed as \u201chigh risk\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would be wrong to infer from this that we have stopped officers attending any other anti-social behaviour incident.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnti-social behaviour can cause damage to communities and individuals ranging from annoyance to serious physical or mental distress.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the resources we have available, we need to prioritise the 1,500 calls a year where there are high risks through repeated anti-social incidents, to vulnerable people, or people being specifically targeted through harassment or serious nuisance.<\/p>\n
\u201cA response from uniformed officers to every report of anti-social behaviour isn\u2019t necessary but it\u2019s also not possible.<\/p>\n
\u201cLocal authorities and the police have shared responsibility to tackle anti-social behaviour in our communities and we don\u2019t believe the public would want uniformed officers responding to issues like dog fouling, litter or noise nuisance.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen residents report those issues we will usually refer to partner organisations better placed to deal with the incident.\u201d<\/p>\n
The letter goes on to state that the force\u2019s focus will be on incidents of ASB where:<\/p>\n
\u2022 Vulnerability and\/or a high risk of threat or harm is identified;<\/p>\n
\u2022 Repeat locations are identified and cause a high risk of threat or harm to a person or community;<\/p>\n
\u2022 An offender is identified who requires police intervention to manage their behaviour;<\/p>\n
\u2022 A repeat victim is identified who require a supportive package to be put in place by police.<\/p>\n
Mark Smith, Chairman of Essex Police Federation, said: \u201cI think it\u2019s a call that has to be made. It needs a change of expectations by everybody either because as police officers we\u2019re used to always attending these calls, and the public are used to us always attending the calls.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe cannot do it any longer. Maybe we\u2019ve been doing it in the past when really we shouldn\u2019t have been, and these other agencies should have been doing it anyway.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut we were where we were, these other agencies now need to start stepping up to the plate and dealing with their own problems because it\u2019s not a police issue unfortunately. It\u2019s not a police matter and we\u2019re having to be quite blunt about it now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ESSEX Police has written to councils to say officers will be attending fewer anti-social behaviour cases because of cuts. Assistant Chief Constable Julia Wortley wrote to all local authorities across\u2026 read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2280,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2279"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2279"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2279\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2283,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2279\/revisions\/2283"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}