rural and wildlife policing strategy...anti-social behaviour that takes place in a rural location,...

David Keane2018 - 2021

RURAL AND WILDLIFE POLICING STRATEGY

RURAL AND WILDLIFE POLICING STRATEGY 2018 - 2021

Cheshire Constabulary covers an area of 919 square miles, with more than two thirds of this being classed as rural. One of our key commitments is supporting communities and this is particularly important in respect of rural areas, where the impact of organised crime can have a significant impact on farming and business. We recognise that there is a strong sense

of community in rural areas and have formed effective partnerships in preventing and tackling rural crime – but there is still more that we can do.

The Constabulary now has a number of specialist officers across the force that are trained in some of the more complex areas of rural and wildlife crime. In addition, all the Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) and local beat managers are receiving training to improve their skills and expertise in this area. This year, I have supported the introduction of Community Bases across Cheshire and in our rural areas, with 26 rural PCSOs working out in the heart of their communities to support you.

Some crimes committed in rural areas aren’t always immediately visible, such as domestic abuse or the targeting of vulnerable individuals. However, we continue to invest in this area and provide specialist support so that victims can have the confidence to report crime to us.

Within this strategy, I have set out five commitments for our rural communities. I look forward to working with Cheshire Constabulary, partners and communities to deliver these promises and working with you to tackle and prevent rural and wildlife crime.

David KeanePolice & Crime Commissioner for Cheshire

Foreword

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In Cheshire, we define rural crime as any crime or anti-social behaviour that takes place in a rural location, or as identified by the victim.

26 dedicated rural Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) work in our rural communities with local police officers.

KeyDesignated Rural Community Area

Community Area

Designated Rural Areas

Background

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National Rural Crime Survey 2018 Three years on from the first survey, the 2018 results from

more than 20,000 national respondents show the following:

More than two-thirds of Cheshire is classified as ‘rural’. When a crime occurs in a rural area, this can have a significant impact not only on the victim themselves, but in many cases, their livelihood as well.

Cheshire Police & Crime Commissioner David Keane and Cheshire Constabulary have recently sought the views of residents on crime faced by those who actually live and work

in rural areas. Rural PCSOs and staff from the PCC’s office took the surveys out into their communities to gather feedback from residents.

Cheshire Rural Crime Survey

• 738 residents completed the Rural & Wildlife Crime survey.

• Over 80% had not been a victim of crime in the past three years.

• Only 21% who had been a victim of crime actually reported it to the police.

• 67% of respondents stated that they were satisfied or

very satisfied with the police in their local area. However, there were 13% who did say they were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied.

• 83% said that they were not aware of any police initiatives to tackle rural and wildlife crime in their area.

• 48% of respondents stated they don’t think crime’s a

very big problem in the area they live.

• 88% of respondents stated they feel safe where they live.

• Top three priorities cited by residents which they’d like to see the police focus on were burglary (67%), speeding (57%) and criminal damage (43%).

Key findings

• The perception of policing in rural communities is poor, and much worse than in urban areas – only 27% of respondents say their local police are doing a good job – 11% lower than when the same question was asked in 2015.

• Some of the most common concerns are not solely policing matters, like fly tipping and speeding – 57% of respondents said they had

seen evidence of fly tipping in the past year, topping the list of offences, with speeding second at 32%.

• Farmers and rural-specific businesses are living with, and in fear of, crime – 69% of farmers and rural-specific business owners have been a victim of crime over the past 12 months with 60% saying they are fairly or very worried about becoming a victim of crime in the future.

• Communities believe crime is a big problem, but many offences go unreported -compared to 2015, the number of crimes going unreported to the police is up by a third for residents and two-thirds by businesses in rural communities – mainly because they do not feel the police and criminal justice system understand the issues or do anything about them.

Key findings


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Cheshire Rural CrimePolicing rural areas requires a different approach. The huge geographic areas covered by our rural road networks, with less cameras and CCTV, can appeal to criminals. There is also the increasing sophistication of organised criminals profiting from thefts such as plant machinery, livestock, raptors and farm vehicles. The loss of equipment may not be noticed immediately and its detection can often be challenging. We understand how this type of crime has a real impact on peoples’ livelihoods and community confidence. Rural policing also requires specialist skills to deal with vulnerability and domestic abuse, as well as operations involving for example badger culls and hunting, where balancing rights to peaceful protest and lawful activities is necessary and also taking action where behaviour is unlawful.

Cheshire Constabulary has made a significant effort with preventative and enforcement work in tackling rural crime. We are now becoming more creative and innovative in the way which we do this, and our Local Policing Units are crucial to this success, with specialist rural and wildlife officers in each area.

There is a consistent presence at rural events, throughout the spring and summer, from large county shows and game fairs, to smaller village events and horse and livestock shows. We have listened, shared ideas, built relationships and learnt a great deal from this increased engagement. This has led to many new initiatives, an understanding of what matters to our communities and provides the basis of our priorities and objectives for the future. We are also investing in dedicated rural vehicles and have designated 26 rural PCSOs with specialist training in rural and wildlife issues.

There are currently six national priority areas for rural crime, all of which are relevant to the Cheshire area:

1 Farm machinery, plant and vehicle theft

2 Livestock offences

3 Fuel theft

4 Equine crime

5 Poaching

6 Fly tipping

We know there is still more work to be done, and this strategy seeks to ensure the needs of our rural communities are met.


Crimes against wildlife take many forms including poaching, badger baiting, illegal hunting and persecution of birds of prey, taking wild birds and/or eggs and the trade of endangered species. Nationally, the approach is to identify those offences which have the greatest impact on UK and global wildlife and focus efforts to gain maximum impact.

The priority areas are derived from information provided by national wildlife and nature conservation organisations together with information from the police.

Badger baiting usually involves digging out badger setts and making them fight against trained dogs, leading to the death of the badger and occasionally the dog. The dog owners often make considerable sums of money in either bets or breeding programmes as dogs skilled at targeting badgers are highly sought after. What may be seen as a rural and isolated crime is barbaric and often part of a more serious organised cross border crime.

Poaching is the biggest and most frequent wildlife problem for Cheshire Constabulary. Poaching can take many forms from using illegal snares, chasing rabbits and hares with dogs, to trespassing with firearms. Poaching is still a crime under several acts, crops are often damaged, livestock scared, and farmers and gamekeepers are threatened. Intelligence indicates, although poaching may be viewed as related to anti-social behaviour, there are tangible links to

organised crime groups.

Wildlife Crime The buying, selling, harming or disturbing wild animals or plants that are protected by law.

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There are six current national priority areas, of which the following four are relevant to the Cheshire area:

1 Badger Persecution

2 Bat Persecution

3 Poaching (including hare coursing)

4 Raptor Persecution (especially golden eagle, white-tailed eagle, red kite, hen harrier, peregrine and goshawk)


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Effective policing on rural and wildlife matters requires engagement; we are much stronger when we work together. We will work with our rural communities, partner organisations, volunteer and community groups, businesses and all other agencies that can help us provide a service which truly meets your needs.

Cheshire Police & Crime Commissioner’s five commitments to you are:

Every PCSO to have training in rural issues and a dedicated rural PCSO for our 26 rural communities, supported by trained special constables and Constabulary volunteers. PCSOs to visit every farm in their area annually.

Attendance at every major rural event with rural officers and to provide a discussion forum with police and partners, supported by two Nights of Rural Action per year.

Increase engagement and initiatives within our communities and ensure we have an active RuralWatch scheme in each of our 26 rural areas to prevent rural and wildlife crime.

Deliver both the prevention and enforcement of rural road safety issues.

Work with our neighbouring forces and partners to target those who commit rural crime in our areas, particularly cross-border acquisitive theft.

Our Commitment to you...

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Prevention – Working with stakeholders we will do what we can to prevent crimes and incidents taking place and stop people becoming victims of crime. We will provide prevention advice and guidance to residents and businesses to maximise the opportunities to prevent, disrupt and detect rural crimes and anti-social behaviour. This includes:

How we will achieve this

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• Maintaining and improving our visible police presence in communities, providing an effective response to calls for help. We have more officers working rural beats and focusing on rural and wildlife crimes than ever before and have invested heavily in national recognised training in these areas. Each local policing area has specialist rural officers, with rural PCSOs responsible for designated rural areas working from and holding surgeries in community bases.

• Provide advice and guidance to residents on staying safe and protecting themselves and their property from opportunist criminals. One example of this is the crime prevention work we are doing with CESAR and other crime prevention brands on tracking equipment on farms and plant machinery, making these expensive pieces of equipment undesirable to thieves and increasing our chances of detection should they be stolen. We are also target hardening rural properties as part of Operation Shield, the Constabulary’s unique DNA Marking system which is protecting homes and businesses by reducing burglary opportunities, deterring offenders and identifying and recovering stolen property.


This strategy reflects the policing priorities within the Commissioner’s Police and Crime Plan. How we connect with our communities, support victims, prevent crime and have a police service fit to the future is detailed over the following pages through our Prevention, Intelligence, Enforcement and Reassurance activity.

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New volunteers signing up for HorseWatch

• Increasing the number of special constables and volunteers working in rural communities. We have increased the number special constables who have been assigned to local areas. We have trained and supplied kit for cycle patrols for our special officers covering the more isolated areas.

• Developing and supporting RuralWatch schemes. In addition to RuralWatch, we have numerous new schemes to improve relationships and fill gaps in rural areas - Cheshire HorseWatch has over 700 members. These schemes connect people with the police and create a two way communication of information and intelligence.

• Listening to resident and community groups to better understand our communities, acknowledging their worries and vulnerabilities in order to take action to deter and disrupt criminality and illegal activity. Our rural officers are focused on continued engagement with those living on their beat areas. We also attend rural community events, with our rural and wildlife crime trailer, raising awareness of the work we do, and seeking continuous feedback from the community. Quarterly focus groups are held with community leaders, National Farmers’ Union (NFU) and partner organisations.

• Identifying repeat victims of crime and anti-social behaviour and managing the way we respond to their needs. We use intelligence to identify current risks and threats, and look at longer term problem solving through collaboration.


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Intelligence – Listening to what people tell us is important, as well as improving the way we share information internally and with the people that we are working with in communities. This will help us to identify problems and determine options that we can use to deter and disrupt criminality. We will:

• Work to identify people and groups that cause the most harm in rural communities. Each rural beat now has an assigned beat officer and rural PCSO, who have strong links with partners and community groups who look at long term problem solving within those beats, including close working with offender management teams.

• Better understand criminality that comes into our area from across our borders by sharing information with other organisations. In addition to our internal systems we are working closely with neighbouring forces, both operationally and strategically. We also attend regular strategy meetings with national organisations involved in this area of crime and investigation to share good practice and current information.


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• Improve the way we provide information to residents, about those people and methods of committing crimes in their communities. Cheshire Police Alert is the free system which sends news, appeals, crime information and crime prevention advice direct to the community via email or text. This also allows people to feed back any information. Our new volunteers within RuralWatch, HorseWatch are also signed up to Alert. Our rural team is often invited to speak at events, colleges and community events and we see this opportunity to share the work we do, and provide information to assist our communities whilst engaging with local elected representatives and parish councils.

• Encourage people to report all crimes and incidents to the police. If crimes are not reported it makes it hard for us to gain a true understanding of crime patterns and incidents. We encourage our communities to report all crime and will support all victim of crime. We also urge the rural community to report any suspicious incidents to us. We are seeing the benefit of this through our new rural schemes, where members are encouraged to be our ‘eyes and ears’ in their local community. At a minimum, this information is used for proactive patrol planning, but it can often be that a minor piece of information or sighting can be that final piece of the puzzle we needed.

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Enforcement – We will enforce the law and target specific areas of crime and those offenders who cause the most harm. We will:

• Ensure an effective police response to reports of rural crime and anti-social behaviour. You can contact us any hour, seven days a week and we will prioritise your calls, aiming to attend emergency calls within 15 minutes and non-emergency calls within 60 minutes. If your response is not time critical we will arrange for a rural officer or PCSO to visit you at a mutually convenient time.

• Undertake operations in conjunction with local groups, partners and other organisations targeting rural crime and anti-social behaviour. We continually run policing operations specific to rural and wildlife crime and utilise the skills and knowledge of other organisations.

• Developing even stronger links with neighbouring police forces to combat and deter cross border criminality. Criminals do not operate within borders, so this cross border work is essential and something we will continue to build upon. Our qualified rural officers meet regularly with their counterparts in other forces, and often work together on operations targeting specific crimes or groups.


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Reassurance – We want safe, engaged, cohesive and confident communities. To ensure this, we will:


Police & Crime Commissioner David Keane with Rural and Wildlife Crime leads, Chief Inspector Simon Meegan and Detective Inspector Adam Alexander.

• Ensure we understand the impact crime and anti-social behaviour has on people living in rural communities and provide a high standard service at the first point of contact. Tackling rural crime is a priority for Cheshire Police. In addition to local beat constables and PCSOs working rural areas, we now have specialist trained rural and wildlife constables, a crime detective inspector and special constables on the rural team. This team is dedicated to engagement, enforcement, investigation and detection of rural and wildlife crime. We will make ourselves more visible and accessible in rural areas so people know and trust us.

• Improve the way we communicate with people living in our rural communities and keep people up to date with current trends of incidents, activity, planned operations and police patrols. We are getting more creative and innovative in engaging with our communities and continually seek feedback on how we can improve this. In addition to Cheshire Police Alert, we provide a visible presence at many community events throughout the year. We are also using social media to raise awareness of rural and wildlife issues and trends and to celebrate the work and successes we have in relation to tackling rural crime.

• Develop effective key networks of people in communities that reflect the diversity of our rural areas. The success of RuralWatch and HorseWatch has drastically increased our networks with the rural community and we now have volunteers from these areas working as part of our wider policing family. We know there is more work to be done and we will strive to develop further, and build upon these relationships.

• Continually seek feedback from people living in our rural areas regarding the way that we are working to deliver the promises made in this strategy. We have reinforced our commitment to the rural community by what the Force is doing day in day out to tackle this important issue.

Key Outcomes

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Improvedsatisfactionwith policingfrom our rural communities.

Increasedreporting of rural and wildlife crime.

Measured through our local rural surveys.

Measured through the number of crimes reported and confidence surveys.

Five outcomesare the criteriathat we believeshow the impactof our work:

How will we monitor this?

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Increase themembershipof active ruralschemes,includingRural andHorseWatch.

Dedicatedoperationslinked to rural and wildlife crime and road safety in rural areas.

Undertake road safety enforcementin all our ruralcommunitiesby our PCSOs.

Measured through our enforcement activity in our rural communities.

Measured through the number of operations in rural areas.

Measured through total number of members.

© Produced by Cheshire Constabulary Rural Crime Team and Corporate Communications October 2018 AMD

Cheshire Police general contact number: 101 www.cheshire.police.uk

David Keane

rural and wildlife policing strategy...anti-social behaviour that takes place in a rural location,...

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