Police and fire work together to snuff out antisocial behaviour!
Police and fire service will be working together on a joint operation to identify and deter those responsible for causing antisocial behaviour and damage in and around schools in Nuneaton during the school holiday periods.
This is a pilot operation to establish the best practice and if successful the project will be rolled out over a larger area of the county.
PS Alan Rymell said, "Schools are large and attractive sites where young people feel comfortable to meet and associate and this can lead on to antisocial behaviour and small acts of criminal damage including arson.
Damage and school fires affect the community enormously as it creates problems for parents who have to look after their children after they are kept off school. The children miss out on education and this creates further problems and those with damaged course work have to redo it.
The next school holiday is in May and we’ll be working jointly with the fire service to snuff out problems of antisocial behaviour before they begin.
New Arson Reduction Manager, Ian Tonner said:
"Now I´m based within the Warwickshire Justice Centre it’s much easier to share information and ideas and that’s how this operation arose. We pooled information, which showed peak data during the school holidays and looked at how we could best work together to reduce incidents of arson in the future.
"The fire service is not an enforcement agency, but any reduction in arson will mean our resources can be better used and we will be assisting the police by providing evidence."
PS Rymell said "Our aim is to deter young people before they cause problems as this is better than dealing with the problem once it has occurred.
"If police and fire service officers consistently spot individuals involved in antisocial behaviour they will use this evidence towards Antisocial Behaviour Contracts and ASBOs.
"We are also appealing to parents to know where their children are during the school holidays as we would not want to be taking children home having committed trespass on school premises."
Working with the fire service is beneficial to both organizations working towards reducing crime and preventing disorder.
Nationally, each year the fire and rescue service attends around 1,200 school fires. School fires cause social problems as well as physical damage. Even small fires can lead to loss of staff and pupil morale, and bring disruption to pupils´ education.
Not all are caused by arson, there are accidental fires caused by electrical equipment or wiring or disposing safely of cigarettes. Around 75% of school fires are started deliberately and almost a third occur during the day. The majority of arsonists are aged between 8-19 years of age.