Tackling crime

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"Our working relationship with our partner agencies is essential in creating a safer borough."

Metropolitan Police crime statistics released this month provide good news for Londoners with a significant decrease in offences and a rise in the number of offenders being caught and prosecuted.

The sustained fall in overall crime across the capital means there were 23,000 fewer offences than last year.

Recent action to tackle terrorist plotters highlights the crucial role of the Met in keeping London’s public and visitors safe but it remains vital for police to tackle criminals at every level in order to provide the kind of police service that Londoner’s want and deserve.

Wandsworth police are dedicated to tackling the crimes that affect individuals and the communities they live in. We make the borough a safer place by arresting and bringing to justice the robbers and burglars and by cracking down on anti-social behaviour.

Wandsworth police work in conjunction with their local partners and the media to publicise good news, witness appeals and to explain how the borough’s Safer Neighbourhood Teams are here to get stuck in to issues that have an impact on you and your neighbourhood.

Wandsworth Borough Commander Joe Royle said:

"The Met-wide Safer Streets operation helped us focus our resources on tackling street crime by closing the net on the robbers operating on the borough. Our response teams are well briefed by our intelligence units on who to look for and the hot spots they should be patrolling.

"We have a dedicated firearms & drugs desk in our borough intelligence unit constantly acting on information and leads to tackle potential firearms incidents and to get these weapons off the street.

"The tackling of gun crime involves all of our officers and Intelligence units who work in conjunction with Trojan firearms unit. Our working relationship with our partner agencies is essential in creating a safer borough."

The release of July’s monthly figures show that crime is falling across the capital city in a way we have not seen in recent memory. Overall crime from April to July 2006 was down 6.8% compared to the same period last year. There were 482 fewer residential burglaries than in the April to July 2005, a 2.5% drop.

Violent crime continues to fall and for this financial year is down 4.6%. Partnership with local communities in tackling gun crime helped cut Trident incidents from 95 offences in April to July 2005 to 78 in April to July 2006. And overall, gun-enabled crime was 23.1% lower than last year.

Commissioner Sir Ian Blair said: "I am particularly encouraged by the falls in violence, something we all naturally fear the most. However we are not complacent and the Violent Crime Directorate that we set up earlier this year is working hard to tackle the most persistent offenders."

Police also took tough action following last year’s 16% rise in street robbery. Today’s figures show that by the end of July, the rate of increase had declined to two per cent and a raft of initiatives and targeted operations are being carried out to ensure that the reductions continue.

MPS crime figures for April-July can be found on the website - www.met.police.uk/crimefigures

September 7, 2006