North Warwickshire crimefighters get Home Office thumbs up
North Warwickshire’s crime and disorder reduction partnership (CDRP) has been praised by the Home Office after its recent success in bringing crime down in the borough.
The Home Office has a Public Service Agreement 1 which aims to reduce crime by 15% by 2007/2008. Its monitoring noted that North Warwickshire achieved an impressive reduction of 24.4% against the baseline when figures for its performance from October to December 2005, inclusive, were published.
Crime came down in several key areas including some of the priority areas for the partnership. Domestic burglary fell by 25% on the same period in 2004, commercial burglary came down 11.2%, shoplifting by 14.2% whilst vehicle crime saw a 29.3% drop from 2004’s figure.
Figures for violent crime bucked a national trend. Whereas national figures showed increases due to changes in how Police report the crimes, violent crime in North Warwickshire fell by 21.1%.
Margaret O’Mara, the director of the Crime Reduction and Community Safety Group, said that “the outcome could not have been achieved without careful planning, effective collaboration and sheer hard work.”
Summing up, she urged the partnership to share “such effective practice with other colleagues in the community safety field.”
Councillor Les Forsyth, chair of North Warwickshire’s CDRP said:
“Obviously we were thrilled at the results which showed us that we are going the right way about bringing crime down. But to get such a ringing endorsement from the Home Office is the icing on the cake and another reward for all those whose hard work has made the borough a safer place.”