LAST year, the continued work of the police’s Community Safety Policing Team – a group of officers who work closely with parishes, charities, the Youth Service and other organisations to problem-solve and proactively prevent crime – was under threat.
Proposed budget cuts would have reduced its headcount from nine to six, with three officers redeployed elsewhere within the police.
However, thanks to a successful Scrutiny amendment to the Budget, an extra £240,000 was reallocated to the police, including £193,000 for the Police Community Safety Policing Team.
Although there are currently seven officers in the team, the additional funding means that recruitment is already under way for the extra two.
The funding reprieve has also provided an opportunity to tweak shift patterns to make sure that resources properly match demand.
Explaining how the team is changing, Inspector David Turnbull, who leads the team, told the JEP: “The money gave us a great opportunity to bring the team back up to the required establishment; the team was never under threat but 93% of the police budget goes on staff, so resources have to be aligned to the threat, harm and risk.”
Insp Turnbull added: “There has been a slight amendment to the shift pattern, which we are continuing to review to meet the current demand. There has also been a review of the parishes to align with the number of officers that I currently have.
“It more or less equates to two parishes per officer – and the majority of those parishes have kept the same community officer that they had before, but obviously two of the previous team went off to new departments, so we have had to replace them.
“In terms of hours, we used to work a late, which would be 12pm to 10pm on a Friday and Saturday, but the rest of the week is unchanged.
“The reason we have made a change is to align with our key partners: a lot of community policing is working with our partners, the biggest ones obviously being the parishes, which are open Monday to Friday, as are mostly our schools, the Youth Service, Children’s Service and Andium Homes. We also work alongside the Honorary Police.
“A big part of what we do is problem-solving policing, and often the solution involves a partner, so by working alongside them, we can problem-solve as efficiently and as quickly as possible.”
Insp Turnbull stressed that it did not mean that there would be an absence of officers working weekends.
He said: “We still have visibility then. Last year, for example, we had a particular problem with retail theft so the four community officer dedicated to St Helier and the town centre worked tirelessly with key retailers to identify the problem and then make sure it wasn’t achievable.
“They worked with the big department stores but also worked on identifying under reporting, because numerous shops were not reporting all thefts.
“However, by making sure that they did report it, we could start to identify patterns such as times, dates, and hotspots, so we could then identify suspects. We saw a reduction in retail theft, whereas the UK trend is an increase.”
More recently, officer hours have been changed to divert attention to Operation Handle, an effort to stamp out young people taking cars out for a ‘joyride’. Unfortunately, their opportunism is often made easier by cars being left unlocked with the keys inside.
Chief Inspector Craig Jackson, who has overall responsibility for the community officers, as well as the 24/7 response team, said: “We generally know the small cohort of individuals doing it, so it is now achieving the evidence to either prosecute or divert them away from that criminality.
“It is still early doors, but it is currently the priority for the force over the short period of time since Operation Handle was launched. It is an ideal job for the Community Safety Policing Team, because we can parachute resources in to try to problem-solve this sort of issue, whether it is from an education, enforcement, or engagement perspective, working with partners like the Youth Service, Education or social care.
“Ultimately, we want to firstly divert activity away from crime, educate and, finally, if we need to, enforce.”
As part of Operation Handle, officers have been checking car doors in high-risk areas and, if they find keys, have been contacting the owner to come along to collect them.
The police have said they will take the keys for collection at Police Headquarters if the owner doesn’t respond straightaway. This is to stop the car being taken but also allows the officers to have a friendly but firm word when the keys are handed back.
The night before the JEP spoke to Chief Insp Jackson and Insp Turnbull, officers had found 34 cars unlocked and two vehicles had been taken.
The officers of the Community Safety Policing Team are assigned at least one parish and are frequent visitors to their parish hall, schools, youth centres and events. They often contribute to the parish magazines too.
Insp Turnbull said: “A close bond usually develops, which makes sense because the officers spend a long time building up trust and confidence, not only with the Constables, Deputies, parish and police administrators but also the Chef de Police, honorary police and schools.
“If I have a problem in a particular parish, I can ask the officers for help. Jo Carter, for instance, knows St Martin and Trinity inside out, and will tell me things that I’m not aware of.
“It is important that we keep that longevity in as much as we can but as police officers, careers develop so they will naturally move to other places. We will always try to find the best fit for a particular parish.”
Chief Insp Jackson added: “This is important because each parish is unique: they all come along with their different ways of working, but also different activities, needs and issues. Obviously dealing with that, we can get ahead of the curve, perhaps working with the schools to make sure that individuals do not come on our radar in a few years’ time.”
Insp Turnbull said that one of the big advantages around the slight change in shift pattern and makeup of the team was that it made it easier for officers to work together. Previously, the Community Safety Policing Team had been split across two shifts, so you had two teams, with three or four people on duty at any one time.
He said: “We now have one team, so we are able to respond to incidents with more resources if we need to. In the past, if there was an issue in St Saviour, for example, such as Operation Handle, we would have relied on its community officer, Henry Woolley, to pick up a lot of that work.
“Now, we can assess it in the morning briefing, and I can have three or four officers dedicated to that. We do have staggered starts, with one officer in at 8am and the other in at 10am, so we still cover the key hours that we always did, but it is now easier to bring officers together and respond to specific issues with more resources.”
Insp Jackson continued: “One of the strengths of building up good relationships with the parishes and communities within them is that, if we have any major crime or incidents, we can assess any tensions in that community, and have those honest conversations at an early stage.
“We will carry out a community impact assessment, which is a living document, to make sure we are responding in the right way, which could be reassurance patrols or bringing various groups together.
Insp Turnbull added: “We regularly attend meetings, including those of the Havre des Pas and Waterfront residents’ groups, and we go to the Town Centre meeting. I meet with the Youth Service once a month, and we also have an Honorary Police operational meeting every month. The Deputy Chief Officer and myself go to the Chef de Police meeting on a regular basis too.
“We just make sure that we are represented in as many places as we can because, when the chips are down, people talk to the community officers: they are trusted faces.
Insp Turnbull said that the Community Safety Policing Team worked on the same floor as the 24/7 response team and the two worked closely together – so if responders, for example, were frequently returning to the same address, the community team might step in to look for patterns, trends and longer-term solutions before any potential escalation.
Chief Insp Jackson added: “Between the two teams, the public get a 24/7, 365-days-a-year response, and these are well within our target times. The Island gets a very good service.”
The Community Safety Policing Team
Parish Name Contact
St Helier Alex Guelpa 612143 / 07797 924828
Henry Woolley 612209 / 07797 744661
St Lawrence Joe Richardson 612645 / 07797 717081
St Mary
St Saviour Henry Woolley 612209 / 07797 744661
St Martin Jo Carter 612754 / 07797 711553
Trinity
St Brelade John Shatford 612434 / 07797 791285
St Peter
St Clement Sarah Harrison 612634 / 07797 791363
Grouville
St John Ryan O’Neill 612022 / 07797 744530
St Ouen
