Community policing experiment failed to reduce residents’ fear of crime

Under an arrangement with North Yorkshire Police in 2000, the Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust (JRHT) agreed to pay £25,000 a year for an additional 24 hours of police time per week at New Earswick. Although the estate was a relatively low-crime neighbourhood, the project was intended to increase the residents’ sense of security through a visible police presence.

The evaluation records how the experiment ran into difficulties from the outset:

• The time that JRHT purchased for policing New Earswick was additional to any operational policing on the estate, but the designated officer remained largely accountable to the police alone. Emergencies and more pressing crime incidents elsewhere tended to draw the officer away from community policing duties. Sick leave, holidays and training further reduced the time spent in the village.
• Hopes of employing a single community police officer who could get to know residents were disappointed. Three different officers held the post in the two years before the contract was terminated almost a year early.
• There was a lack of clarity about the role of ‘community policing’ and the activities that the designated officer would undertake. This gave individual officers wide discretion over the way they interpreted their role and how they used the additional time.
• The project created high expectations among residents about the level of policing and its impact on crime. There was constant tension between what residents expected from police and what the extra 24 hours a week could realistically achieve.

The researchers found that the number of crimes recorded annually by police in New Earswick fell by 5 per cent in the first year of the project, but then almost doubled in the second year. Much of the increase related to less-serious offences and happened at a time when crime was also rising (less steeply) in surrounding neighbourhoods.

Even so, the researchers conclude that any beneficial effects on crime near the start of the project were short-lived. Surveys at the start and end of the initiative, meanwhile, showed a small rise in the proportion of residents who said they felt unsafe outside after dark, and a more marked increase in dissatisfaction with local policing from 30 to 40 per cent.

Another unintended consequence of the project reflected in residents’ increased use of intruder alarms and other security measures was to raise concerns over security and safety. As the initiative came to an end, a private security firm was hired to patrol New Earswick and JRHT installed closed-circuit television cameras (CCTV).

Prof. Adam Crawford, co-author of the report, said: One of the key lessons to be learned from this well-intentioned attempt to make residents feel more secure is that trying to tackle local order problems through policing and security alone can have the opposite effect. The issues that give rise to public demands for more police or more security hardware need more careful scrutiny and discussion in advance.

Police forces also need to consider how they can sell their time, which is a public resource, without having an adverse impact on the wider policing service, or undermining the expectations of those who are purchasing the service. In New Earswick, the additional policing initiative was undermined from the start by a widening gap between what the police were able to deliver and the heightened expectations of local people.

Jacquie Dale, Community Services Manager for the JRHT, said: Residents wanted to see more ‘bobbies’ on the beat. They wanted to feel secure in the knowledge that if a crime or anti-social behaviour incident occurred the community police officer would quickly know what was going on and have a good idea who was responsible. They also wanted to see a police officer walking or cycling around the village getting to know people. The reality was that this was almost impossible to deliver, even when additional policing hours were paid for. Residents’ expectations were never met and fear of crime levels did not diminish as had been hoped.

She added: We are now looking at alternative models for preventing low level crime and for heightening levels of community safety. The disappointing outcome of this community policing experiment in no way diminishes the resolve of residents or ourselves to create a high quality of life for young and old in New Earswick.

Geoff Bunce, Chair of the New Earswick Residents Forum said: The Residents Forum whole heartedly supported the idea of community policing to combat nuisance crime and help alleviate the fear of crime. Unfortunately the reality did not live up to the expectation for a number of reasons.

I was one of a group who, after due consideration, recommended the termination of the experiment. However, I still believe that with help from a number of agencies, police included, we can all make a difference to the community around us and keep New Earswick a safe place to live and work.