Panel gives feedback for police
More bobbies on the beat and extra efforts to tackle anti-social behaviour are being called for by Staffordshire residents. They also want police officers to have a better understanding of community needs.
More bobbies on the beat and extra efforts to tackle anti-social behaviour are being called for by Staffordshire residents. They also want police officers to have a better understanding of community needs.
Residents want officers to be be more approachable and keep them updated on the progress of their investigations. The feedback follows on from a survey by Staffordshire Police of more than 600 residents who are helping to shape the future of local policing in the area.
Members of the force's pioneering Citizens' Panel have completed their first in-depth survey, giving their views on issues such as neighbourhood policing, how safe they feel and their level of confidence in the force's 2,500-plus officers and Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs).
The survey went out to 829 panel members and nearly three-quarters, 609 people, replied.
Of those that responded, 13 per cent of people graded local crime levels as above three on a scale of 0 to five, but 36 per cent rated anti-social behaviour as three or above.
Deputy Chief Constable Adrian Lee said 78 per cent welcomed PCSOs as a "valuable addition" to local policing resources.
Mr Lee said: "We know that last year 85 per cent of burglary, violence, car crime and road crash victims were satisfied with the overall service we provided.
"But we want to do better, and the Citizens' Panel is a great way of gathering the information we need to do that."
He said the results showed that those who took part in the survey were almost unanimous in their support of the force's approach to local policing.
"Some 97 per cent thought that it was a good idea for neighbourhood policing teams to work in partnership with other agencies and the public to address local issues," he said.
"It was very clear that people want to know who their local officers are and how to contact them. However, whilst many of our officers' and PCSOs' names and faces are known, we could be doing more to boost their profile.
"The results suggest that we could do better at showing how well we understand communities' needs.
