Government inspectors found that the force are currently under-recording too many reports of crime, including reports of rape, violent crimes and sexual offences and estimate that 38,000 crimes go unreported every year
The report out this morning from Her Majesties Inspectorate of Constabulary found that the force records around 85 percent of crimes reported to it.
While it has made some progress in placing the victim at the forefront of their crime-recording decisions and has made good progress against a national action plan developed to improve crime-recording, it is incorrectly cancelling recorded sexual offences (excluding rape) and offences of robbery and violence; and
Inspectors also concluded it has limited supervision to support officers and staff in making good and prompt crime-recording decisions and there is a lack of understanding by officers and staff of their responsibilities for crime-recording.
HM Inspector of Constabulary Dru Sharpling said:
“We estimate that the force fails to record over 38,000 reported crimes each year. The reported crimes that go unrecorded include serious crimes, such as violence and sexual offences. The failings are often a consequence of a lack of knowledge on the part of the officers and staff as to their responsibilities for crime-recording; including the cancellation of recorded crime records.”
Responding to the report, Deputy Chief Constable Ian Pilling said: “In the past two years we have made significant improvements in recording crime with an increase in accuracy from 68 per cent to 85 per cent. This means that in well over eight out of 10 cases, crime is accurately being recorded.
He added that:
“Violent crime is highlighted as one of the most problematic areas. Three quarters of cases are recorded correctly but there is still further work to do. It is important to remember that violent crime includes many crime categories from violence without injury to serious assault. The majority of the failings were in the less serious categories.”
“Although we have made significant progress, we recognise that there is still more work to do to ensure that we are where we want to be. One of the key developments will be the introduction of a new IT system that will allow officers to record crime at the first contact. So when the victim rings us to report a crime, it will automatically be recorded. This is a major step forward and should be in place within the next 12 months.”
