Today (Thursday 29 February 2024) marks the launch of GMP’s burglary day of action across the force.
Officers from across GMP joined Operation Acquire last month in a mission to tackle vehicle crime with extra resources dedicated to areas across Greater Manchester with a collective goal; to target and arrest those who are suspected of committing neighbourhood crime.
Last month, the day of action saw many successes, the action during the day led to 32 arrests and numerous charges secured by neighbourhood crime team officers for various offences linked to vehicle crime across the force.
Today, the public will see an increase of activity such as highly visible patrols in hotspot areas that have recently seen an increase in burglary, with officers handing out crime prevention leaflets to members of the public across Greater Manchester to help reduce the number of burglaries in the first instance.
In July 2021, GMP committed a pledge to the Government to send a resource to every domestic burglary across Greater Manchester codenamed Operation Castle.
The operation was a ground-breaking initiative which had a clear focus; to conduct full investigations, develop initiatives to tackle repeat offenders, and to protect victims from being repeatedly targeted. Alongside assessing the impact on crime prevention and detection following 100% attendance at burglaries.
Superintendent Chris Foster, force lead for Operation Castle, said: “Operation Castle has gone from strength to strength in the last two and a half years since it was launched and we have done this by increasing our focus on proactive policing, we continue to work on protecting victims by raising awareness of crime prevention techniques that can be adopted to prevent burglaries.
“It’s also key that we capture and share learnings from best practice from across the force and invest in the development of staff to improve the service that we provide to the public and protect victims of crime whilst also being robust in our approach to arresting and charging those who we believe are responsible for burglaries across the force.
“Despite continued progress and improvements under Operation Castle, it goes without saying, we are not complacent. Although we have seen reductions, the number of burglaries being committed in Greater Manchester is still too high and we are working hard to reduce the number of burglaries. Days of action like today are a perfect example of how we utilise extra resources to tackle this offence.
