100 Support Staff Join in Front-Line Crime Fighting
Thursday, 20 August, 2009
Lincolnshire's T/Assistant Chief Constable Alec Wood beside one of the 'Trap Cars' designed to reduce vehicle crime during a day of action on 'Operation Fusion', an ongoing operation against the acquisitive crimes of burglary, robbery and vehicle crime. '
HQ Performance Manager, Julie Hogan with T/ACC Alec Wood delivering an Operation Fusion crime prevention leaflet to a Lincoln householder.
More than 100 members of Lincolnshire Police Support Staff responded to Chief Constable Richard Crompton's invitation to go out on the streets to directly contribute to crime prevention and reduction in the County. It marked the third of a series of action days on what they've called Operation Fusion which is designed to target the acquisitive crimes of Robbery, Burglary and Vehicle crime. The police staff, were given four hours off their desk duties and delivered prevention leaflets to hundreds of homes across the County.
"Community vigilance and intelligence are often the most powerful weapons against these crimes, and we will be encouraging people to play their part in helping to make the overall operation a success," says Mr Crompton.
Temporary Assistant Chief Constable for Protective Services, Alec Wood says that Operation Fusion is a long-term strategy. "The aim is to take an intelligent, sustained approach addressing the root causes of acquisitive crime such as drugs abuse. We also want people to help us reduce the chance of them becoming a victim of crime," he says. "The challenge for us is to keep hammering those messages home and to be creative and forward thinking in the way we do that."
Mr Wood says that Operation Fusion was launched in response to what was a national trend of increases in acquisitive crime which followed some years of reducing crime levels and there are already some encouraging results. "We have already seen significant reductions in vehicle crime and some positive successes in bringing offenders to justice in relation to robbery and burglary offences," he says.
As part of the ongoing evaluation of Operation Fusion, the National Policing Improvement Agency have accepted the invitation of the Force to give advice in relation to the operational tactics being deployed and to identify good practice that can be shared with other forces across the country. Chief Superintendent Steve Curtis from the NPIA is working closely with the Force in the role of supportive critical friend.
ACC Wood said: "Involving the NPIA is a vital part of this operation. It will enable us to effectively monitor and evaluate our service delivery and benchmark our performance against the national picture."
