Written evidence from Martyn Underhill, Police and Crime Commissioner for Dorset
CRIME REDUCTION POLICIES – A CO-ORDINATED APPROACH
SUMMARY
A summary of my submission is as follows:
Q1 “What is the Government’s approach to cutting crime? To what extent is the approach taken cross-departmental, and how are resources for such policies - from within and outside of the criminal justice system - allocated and targeted?”
1.1 The Government approach is a clear one – all police forces and partner agencies must cut crime. In many areas, the legislation and funding helps achieve that, however, I worry that poor performance and direction from other departments nationally and locally divide and hinder the approach.
Westminster v Localism
1.2 Health and Education provide a confusing picture in the fight against crime. This is due to the Government localism agenda, which allows some Government departments to escape the main drive from the centre to cut crime.
1.3 I shall give two examples:
1.4 Firstly, mental health. Policing as a service and crime in general, is fed by incidents caused by people suffering from mental health issues. One in four people will have issues at some stage in their life. Research has shown that such people will become victims more easily, and will re-offend more as offenders. The re-offending is because they are not treated, or diverted.
1.5 Tackle mental health issues nationally, and we can cut crime, and reduce the amount of people suffering from mental health who will become victims. There are other obvious benefits of a co-ordinated approach to this problem. However the issue of mental health care fails spectacularly because of a disjointed approach by numerous departments.
1.6 This poor join up of objectives and budgets means that there is a “disconnect” between departments such as NHS England, Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCG’s), Local Authority Public Health and Mental Health Teams.
1.7 The police service, as an aside, then becomes the “service of last resort”. Police pick up Health Department issues such as people in crisis in public and private places, people in crisis in custody suites, and transportation of such people. All of these issues detract from the police objective of cutting crime.
1.8 The Home Secretary has written and spoken many times about this issue, however, the disparate approach taken locally by the numerous Health Departments means that the issue floats between Government mantra and local funding agendas. I watch with interest to see how the Health and Wellbeing Boards (HWBs) impact on this issue in the future.
1.9 My second example relates to education. The concept of academies and free schools has allowed such establishments to devise their own curriculum. This means that a standard approach to PSHE nationally has been diluted and lost. I see completely different approaches to drug, alcohol, sex and cyber bullying education in Dorset.
1.10 This causes inconsistencies in what children are taught, and more importantly, means that young adults are poorly equipped to make life choices. Poor life choices create both an increase in victims of crime and in youth offending.
1.11 It is interesting, that as I write this, the Deputy Prime Minister has raised the same issue.
Early Intervention
1.12 I endorse the Government approach to Troubled Families. Notwithstanding that, I would like to see it drive more Early Intervention (EI) through the culture of Community Safety Partnerships (CSPs), HWBs and Safeguarding Boards.
1.13 Whilst I welcome the Troubled Family agenda, my issue is that to reach the high threshold of a Troubled Family, it is often too late to improve outcomes. I liken it to a house fire. By time you are a labelled a Troubled Family, the house is on fire, and all the authorities can do is attend to put the fire out. If you intervene early, and put in a smoke detector, you stop the fire. You stop the chaos taking hold. Pro-active early intervention must be better than reactively putting out a fire. And along the way you can change a generation of children, improving their outcomes for life.
1.14 Here in Dorset, we now have two out of three of our top tier authorities taking part in the new Early Intervention Foundation pilots. Notably, these pilots come without funding. The two Authorities made these bids in conjunction with me. And I am now “pooling” budgets with these authorities to address EI.
1.15 The Government strategy to crime reduction fails to recognise the huge link between the 0-5 year olds, and the future. If all 0-5 yr olds went to school being able to read, write and talk properly (in other words, be “school ready”) they would have a different future. Children who are not school ready stay in the lower quartile for their whole school career, and leave school with low self esteem, low achievement and are the victims and offenders of the future.
1.16 We must be bold and link children’s education and esteem to the offenders and victims of the future. In Dorset I am doing that by sharing resources and information. And the public get it, they understand where the issues lay, and how they can be solved.
1.17 Pooled funding enables the commissioning of joined up services which have tangible outcomes. These services can link into or bolster the initiatives the Committee have identified like Homestart and the Nurse Family Partnership to help achieve change.
Keep Catching Criminals / Keep Cutting Crime (KCC)
1.18 An area of concern for me is the need for the Government to drive catching criminals and detecting crime. This isn’t about introducing more statistics. It is about making sure the police do what the public expect – detecting crime. If you embrace Early Intervention as the mantra to changing outcomes in the future, then the Government should be instructing police and partners to catch more criminals.
1.19 This is not about target setting it is about accepting that most crimes are committed by someone who has already broken the law, or by someone who could go on to commit more crime. If the police and partners are encouraged to catch more criminals, they can engage with the offenders, and change their outlook and lifestyle, to prevent more crime happening in the future.
1.20 You can only change offending behaviour if you intervene. Failure to catch criminals fails to tackle the problem. That is why I welcome the transforming rehabilitation (TR) changes that now bring offenders sentenced to less than 12 months into the rehabilitation programme.
1.21 On my election here in Dorset, the police were only catching one in five offenders, in other words, 20% of crime was resolved satisfactorily. The public were deeply unhappy with this statistic. I therefore set a target in the Police and Crime Plan – I said I wanted one in three criminals caught instead of one in five by 2016. In response, the police changed their investigative procedures and introduced “Operation Advance”. And after a year, as well as driving crime down by over 8%, we have raised our resolved crime rate to 25%, in other words one in four. We are getting there.
1.22 I call this approach KCC: Keep Catching Criminals as well as Keep Cutting Crime. In my view, having the two KCCs is essential. It drives the very essence of why you have a police force – The “prevention and detection of crime”.
1.23 I welcome the Government recognising this crucial aspect of crime management.
Partnership Working
1.24 Reduction of crime will always be a joint agency agenda. If we accept that, then this is arguably the most successful angle of the current Government approach. The arrival of PCCs has enabled the concept of shared priorities to be crystallised from the Police and Crime Plan.
1.25 The legislation has focussed partners on each other’s priorities, and I congratulate the Government on this approach.
1.26 In Dorset I am leading a drive for change in our partnership structure with a view to moving from three CSPs to one pan Dorset partnership, as indeed Merseyside have already done. This allows one partnership to drive forward key priorities and also makes commissioning an easier process.
Q2 How reliable is the evidence on which these policies are based?
2.1 Mainly good. I have huge respect for the Cabinet Office Policy Team. The Troubled Family ethos, EI, and the determination to drive down crime as drivers of a better society are well founded by research.
2.2 However, Evidence Based Policing is still in many ways in its infancy, and the Government needs to do more to raise its profile to enable Forces such as mine to share best practice.
2.3 I do have a concern that some Government Policy is driven by cost rather than research. A good example of this is the Transforming Rehabilitation Programme. I know Alun Michael has already raised the issue with your committee. Curtailing the payment by results pilots, before completion, and proper evaluation has concerned people. Time will tell if the Government approach is the correct one.
Q3 What impact have recent spending reductions had on the implementation of crime reduction policies, and the way in which resources for crime reduction are channelled at a local level?
3.1 This is a huge question. What is a crime reduction policy? Sarah’s Law and Clare’s Law are both fantastic crime preventers, but most people would not consider such initiatives in their “crime prevention or reduction toolkit”.
3.2 I support the Anti Social Behaviour (ASB) approach being taken by this Government, and welcome the new community trigger.
3.3 However, one area does concern me - pan Dorset there is an issue with long term entrenched neighbour/boundary disputes that the law does not appear to cater for. Current legislation fails to tackle these complicated matters. This is even more the case if one or both parties own their own homes, removing the option of re-housing. I would like to see this addressed, by creating an arbitration system that will adjudicate.
3.4 I am happy that the processes to “design out crime” are in place and working.
3.5 I do worry that the traditional face of police crime prevention – the crime prevention officer – has suffered badly due to the cuts. Most Forces have cut these roles, amalgamated them, or regionalised them, as we are doing in the South West. The best future for this in my view is a collaborative agency approach.
SAIL
3.6 In Dorset, we have an initiative called Safe and Independent Living (SAIL) which is where different agencies such as the Fire Service, Police and Project for Older Peoples Partnerships use one form to identify issues in a household, which is then shared. At the moment it relates to older people.
3.7 We need to embrace this principle, and get better at it. If one agency is liaising with a family or a household, the opportunity to identify concerns and share the issues is enormous, and could break down barriers between agencies.
The Late Night Levy
3.8 I am concerned that the localism agenda has resulted in a total rejection nationally of the Late Night Levy (LNL). The LNL is welcomed by senior police officers and me as an important aspect of the crime reduction toolkit.
3.9 The LNL is recognition of the role a licensee plays in fuelling the alcohol issue in crime. The levy would achieve corporate responsibility of the issue, and fund policing efforts to tackle it. The LNL has failed universally because of devolving the issue to Local Authorities, who are lobbied by local businesses. It is another example of Westminster v Localism.
“Cloud Based” Case management system
3.10 Finally, we all know that the issue of crime prevention, and detection, could be improved by the introduction of a “cloud based” case management system used by all agencies involved with risk and harm.
3.11 In Dorset I am just trying to “pump prime” this principle, by introducing a software system (approved to Government stand IL3) between agencies. The Probation Service, my office and the LRF currently use the system. To have one system that all agencies can use in a “Windows” based environment is the holy grail of all law enforcement agencies.
Q4 What contribution do existing sentencing, prison and policies make to the reduction of crime?
4.1 The Integrated Offender Management (IOM) system does work, and police and probation are getting better at it. Most forces are seeing improvements in reoffending rates, and that is a good thing.
4.2 The good thing about the new TR proposals is that it brings forces together, and therefore best practice and common goals can change outcomes. For example, our new Community Rehabilitation Company (CRC) is based across Dorset and Devon & Cornwall. Devon & Cornwall IOM practices differ in technique and resourcing to Dorset, and now the Chief Constable and I are aligning our IOM to match theirs.
4.3 As with cutting crime, the IOM process (and the prison process) fails to have the full support or impact of Health Professionals. If we accept that a huge amount of offenders are in a “cycle” due to addiction, then their health and wellbeing is crucial to stopping that cycle. Resourcing of health professionals (outside of nurse/GP provision) inside prisons in Dorset is problematic.
4.4 I await with interest to see what “through the gate” services come as part of the Community Rehabilitation Company (CRC) that is being set up. The good news is that the new PCC role can “fill the gap” and commission services to bolster and improve those being offered by the new CRC’s. I am heavily committed to mentoring as a way forward, and I applaud the “Circles” mentoring approach to reducing risk and harm in sex offending cases.
4.5 I would like to highlight an anomaly in relation to sentencing however. I have already referred to the Westminster v Localism dilemma in relation to cutting crime. A dilemma in the area of sentencing is the Public v The Judiciary in relation to Neighbourhood Justice Panels (NJP’s). We are trialling two of these in Dorset. They have massive public support. Most victims welcome the chance to meet the offender in their case, and welcome a panel deciding on an appropriate sentence. These panels are quicker, and achieve better reductions in re-offending, than the traditional court based processes.
4.6 The dilemma is the role of magistrates. I feel that JP’s should sit on these panels to provide insight, experience and legitimacy to the process. However, the Judiciary are fiercely protective over this, and will not allow JP’s to engage.
4.7 At a time when lower court sittings are reducing, at a time when most JP’s in Dorset struggle to achieve their “sitting hours” this seems a strange position for us to be in.
4.8 The Government needs to intervene and push NJP’s forward as an excellent sentencing tool that is quick, cost effective, and achieves massive positive victim feedback.
4.9 Equally, we need to see the Restorative Justice approach rolled out to all adult courts. We have seen how well the approach works with our young people.
Q5 How cost effective and sustainable are the Governments strategies for punishment and reform and their proposals for transforming rehabilitation?
5.1 I applaud the TR proposals, with one exception. I worry that the feature of two different organisations, the National Probation Service, and the CRC in an area will allow an offender who rapidly changes risk category to “slip between the cracks”.
5.2 A cloud based case management system is again the panacea here.
5.3 I also applaud the victim surcharge, although I wonder why some courts convicting for offences without a victim are imposing the levy.
5.4 I think the new Government approach to punishment and reform is sustainable, as is the approach to closing cost prohibitive prisons. For example, HMP Dorchester will close soon, because it cost twice as much to keep a prisoner there in comparison to a newer prison.
5.5 I do have a concern however, over the prison estate. My concern was that HMP Dorchester was named as my “local” and “resettlement” prison for Dorset, and then the Government announced its closure. I am now in a position, like other PCCs, that my County does not have local solutions for “through the gate” services. My nearest “local or resettlement” prison is now in another County.
5.6 Whilst the logic of this from a cost point of view is obvious, it will hamper the efforts of the PCC and agencies to provide coherent local solutions to re-offending.
5.7 This is also the case in relation to commissioning. The CRC areas are very large, and small effective intervention organisations will struggle to tender for these services.
5.8 I also have a concern about the new Government “super” prisons. If you accept that a prisoner’s “support network” is crucial to rehabilitation in the long term, then making the family travel 150 miles to see their loved one does raise issues, and could destroy the network. It also damages services that the PCC or other agencies want to commission.
5.9 And finally, in closing, I have reservations over the Government drive to separate victim and witness services. I know this has already been raised with you. Most PCCs want to see victim and witness commissioning to be local rather than national.
October 2012