A welcome change for ward panels

Setting of local SNT Police priorities has been the privilege of ward panels since more than a decade.

Previously ward panels could set all three ward priorities, often setting extra patrols for crime and ASB Hotspots.

Now the system has changed to Police setting one priority and the ward panel members deciding on the other two. The priority, set by officers must be centred around violence or drivers of violence.

Officers got a lot of training to combat domestic violence. One priority on ward panels currently has been set to combat domestic violence.

The other two, extra patrolling are set differently from ward to ward.

Often issues are very similar across more wards like certain crime types repeat over large areas, so patrolling only one small area within a ward will not resolve these issues.

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The ‘Ask for Ani’ scheme was set up to allow those needing help to pop into business, which advertise the scheme to ‘Ask for Ani’ at the counter and get help. See a list of participating Chemists here. There are also other businesses, which you recognise on the posters in their premises advertising the scheme.

It is very helpful that police aim to address one urgent area of crime within a larger area, which can be set in ward panels of more than one region simultaneously.

Click to see the latest Ward Panel handbook.

A better quality of complaint

Taking into consideration that all complaints under the Community Trigger procedure can be accepted or refused and we can see that

60% of all complaints between 2018-20

87% of all complaints between Jan and July 2021

were refused, we need to improve the quality of complaint, so that the refusal rate can be reduced for cases where complaints procedures were inefficient. Would like to emphasize that we were not involved in any of the refused cases.

We get a a considerable amount of complaints under ASB and people not knowing how to complain best and not getting responses to complaints are the ones we want to appease.

We need to avoid language barriers and for that reason being registered with Ourwatch helps all recipients of our communications the ability to have all mails translated into 50 languages, to overcome this.

Getting the benefit of our expert advise to registered members and freely available on our website will improve the quality of complaint and quality of approaching problems and should further improve the quality of complaints, should that become necessary.

We hope that all Councillors and SNT officers recommend subscription to Ourwatch as a matter of routine, along with housing providers and other organisations.

Current crimes clients of the probation service have been convicted for.

The latest Met Police Ward Panel handbook recommends Ourwatch as a main partner for Neighbourhood Watch.

If we know that the vast majority of the current clients of the Probation service have been sentenced for the offence of violence, we can predict the general climate of problems.

The next offence of Drug possession has 2/3 less convictions.

#takefiveweek

We are proud to be supporting #TakeFiveWeek.

Always say no if someone contacts you asking for personal or financial info.

Saying ‘no’ can feel uncomfortable but it’s ok to reject, refuse or ignore requests. Only criminals will try to rush or panic you.

@TakeFive

Stop. Challenge. Protect. One in five people feel uncomfortable saying no to a stragner

Received a suspicious text message, report to 7726

9/11 20 years commemoration

We will never forget the victims of this horrible, cowardly terror attack on Lower Manhattan and other locations in the US. It is doubly sad now as this 20 years on, coincides with the Taleban taking over Afghanistan. Memorial services will be held today and it takes three hours to read out all the names of the victims.

We should all take the time to listen to the names of the victims being read out.

BBC News 1pm – 6:30 pm

This will be a stark reminder, that we can never be complacent and have to look out for dangerous signs of adverse activities in our country.

Enquiry needed

An enquiry is needed to determine police availability to deal with local Safer Neighbourhood and Crime issues due to demonstrations and other public issues.

Two types of incidences have recently been blamed for reduced police availability

• Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, preventing police vehicles through roads
• Demonstrations demanding all resources, including local Tower Hamlets SNT officers.

We can’t ascertain that Low Traffic Neighbourhoods have a more severe effect on vehicle traffic flow than other road issues.

Found myself this morning directing cars to move to one side because an emergency police vehicle could not go through traffic, which stopped on a very long access road from East London. Traffic is at standstill on that road almost every day during rush hour and it’s not affected by any LTN schemes.

roads blocked by traffic are a norm in some areas.

Road planning should not just concern itself with pedestrian issues but also on enabling a traffic flow for emergency vehicles whilst other traffic may be re-directed otherwise.

We also see that some roads, which can be blocked during rush hour get used for racing at night time because it’s such a nice stretch of road.

We have had at least twice had excuses that crime reports and SNT issues could not be dealt with because of a demand to attend demonstrations.

Also here an enquiry is needed to ascertain what type of demonstrations are reasonable. Because if prolonged and extended demonstrations stop police from solving crime, then the balance of service is definitely out of sync.

There seem to be no spare officers to deal with unusual situations due to either public order or traffic issues.

Those issues probably do not affect most areas in the UK but the City of and East London take the brunt of complications due to both issues and extra resources are needed to handle this.

It’s a real shame if criminals can rely on police not being available because of a lot of demonstrations for example.

We definitely do not want people to take the law into their own hands and ask you all to be patient, do not interact with suspicious people. Do take ledgers and report in as much detail as you can.

thnwa_reporting_sheet-4Download

Dame Cressida Dick officially re-opens station

Dame Cressida unveiled a plaque to commemorate the reopening of our local station.

On Saturday, 4. September 2021, Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick DBE QPM officially re-opened Bethnal Green Police Station!

The station has recently undergone some extensive refurbishment, including the addition of new video recorded interview suites, which means that vulnerable victims can now provide their statements to us easily and quickly, in-house, meaning less travel to other nearby stations.

Officers are very pleased with the new-look station, and have added their own personal touch to it internally. They have added murals to the walls featuring photos from Tower Hamlets through history, and displayed some items provided by retired officers, and the Heritage Centre.

We, the community would love to see the return of leaflets stands, to supply the people visiting the station with Neighbourhood Watch information.

Also, it would have been nice if the connection between the community, who support law and order, and the station could have been manifested by having a Neighbourhood Watch representative at the occasion. Unfortunately Neighbourhood Watch was not invited.

This is perhaps symptomatic of removing the communal connection also in the fact that the Police and Community Safety Board had been renamed to Safer Neighbourhood Board, omitting the community from the name.