PCSOs do a very good job (From Witney Gazette)

PCSOs do a very good job

3:31pm Tuesday 5th February 2008 in Witney By David Horne

AN 'army' of community support officers and targeted policing has made significant inroads against crime in Witney and West Oxfordshire.

The message was delivered this week by the area's police commander, Chief Insp Dennis Evernden, as preview British Crime Survey figures were released.

They cover the period from last April to the end of January this year. There are still two months to go before official figures for the past year are finalised, but key areas of criminal damage, burglary and vehicle thefts are all down.

The downside is that wounding and assault offences are on the increase.

The success story on burglary - down 23 per cent on the previous year - is even more encouraging because the detection rate is now better than one in three, compared to the Thames Valley force's one in ten.

Mr Evernden told the Gazette: "That is a detection rate to be proud of, but it's so high because we have caught the few travelling burglars who commit so much of our burglaries."

Detection rates are configured by convictions, and people charged and waiting to go to court. Just over a year ago, the policy was drawn up to recruit, in Mr Evernden's words, 'an army of Police Community Support Officers' after a Government funding go-ahead. A full complement of 20 are in place, and funding is guaranteed for next year.

"Every area where they are concentrated the crime statistics have turned from red to blue," he said.

"We have some cracking people out there on the streets, they have contributed massively to our ability to cut crime. It is their presence and the information they pick up and pass on which is so invaluable."

PCSOs can hand out a range of on-the-spot fines, but do not have powers of arrest. They act, however, as the eyes and ears of the local force.

Their role has freed up regular officers to concentrate on priorities drawn up by the West Oxfordshire Crime Safety Partnership.

Overall, the crime rate in West Oxfordshire in the past ten months has dropped by seven per cent, four per cent over the target set by the Government.

The key area where it has gone up is in violence, from common assault to wounding.

Mr Evernden added: "It is the pattern across the country, and this is currently our priority area. We now have town centre initiatives in Witney, Carterton, and Chipping Norton, area with a night time economy. We are issuing fixed penalty fines for drunken behaviour, so that it does not escalate into assault and wounding."