Former police officer Dr Ken German considers auto-crime.
According to the Home Office it is suggested that the UK’s 138,000 police officers are looking for 5000 prolific offenders who commit a tenth of all of our reported crime. As a quarter of all reported crime relates to the motor vehicle it’s a good bet that nearly all of these criminals use some sort of transport to assist them in committing their offences.
With vehicle crime still being treated as a low priority by the police in the UK it’s a compliment to our boys and girls in blue that so many local initiatives continue to be instrumental in sustaining its continued reduction. Such was the opinion at a recent National Vehicle Crime Conference packed with selected individuals from the police and the insurance industry all eager to learn what the future holds in their joint fight against vehicle crime.
Whilst justifiable praise went to both the manufacturers achievements in security and the government’s success (via the police) in reducing specifically car theft there was a note of caution.
Because of these and any future improvements in security, it was generally prophesied that ‘theft of and theft from’ the car may well be, in as little as ten years or so, a thing of the past.
However as one delegate suggested, this could backfire on us. ‘We have to have some car crime in one shape or the other as relief valve for those criminals who would, without it, possibly have to resort to violence to make their living.’
The delegates were also aware that statistically while fewer of the quality cars were now stolen by organised criminals, their skills in disguise and disposal as well as violence were such that only one in 10 of the these quality ‘thief proof’ cars were actually being recovered.
The note of caution related to the ‘other’ parts of the generic term autocrime which now encompass specialist ‘anorak’ areas, many of which were debated in conference at length, with opinion less divided than one might expect.
For instance when speaking to any of the police officers present, specialist or otherwise, about the following vehicles they immediately suggested a stereotype of the group or individual most likely, in their opinion, to steal them.
The open discussion on specifically car crime underlined the fact that it has and continues to be an area of considerable change both in the perpetration and in its investigation.
Nothing portrays that better perhaps from the law enforcement side than the various police and business partnerships that have been forged, for example the finance and leasing associations’ own police squad which continues to realise a quadruple return on the investment made.
Well publicised attempts to obtain the key by way of burglary and robbery are now garnished with forgery, fraud and deception often by way of identity theft.
As one insurance delegate suggested: "For us, looking for someone who may not in fact really exist who fraudulently obtains a vehicle that now has a false, duplicate or fictitious registration number takes our investigations to another level and we need all the help we can get."
It’s a common belief that those involved with organised crime will never leave the car alone and their already acquired expertise will have to be equalled then bettered before it becomes too late to prevent another epidemic.
Car crime peaked in 1993 with 592,660 reported thefts. It is now annually around 230,000.
Training officers in the various disciplines of autocrime however takes time and the qualifications or accreditation necessary nowadays to compete with vehicle experts in the courts, is thankfully already under way and not a moment to soon.
Any discussion on plant equipment theft usually guarantees a forced comfort break but the recent suggested figures of £1m being stolen every day was staggering.
The Met Commisioner, primed with the above knowledge, may well have been one of the few Brits not to have cheered when we won the right to hold the Olympics. With resources stretched already and the thought that the above figure may well treble on the run up to the 2012 games it’s no real surprise that assistance from the business sector is urgently sought.
The last Olympics in Greece saw most of the construction equipment stolen almost the day after the stadium complex was finished. The culprits here of course it is alleged were the unscrupulous members of the industry itself.
More than 4000 caravans are stolen every year and when it relates to a quarter of all the UK’s production its no surprise that both the police and the insurance industry have become a little worried particularly with the poor rate of recovery. It was also no surprise when the culprits or their stereotype were immediately recognisable.
Suffice to say that as both the method of theft and the most likely thieves were already known a great deal of caution should be exercised and a ‘good luck’ rider added.
The question of motorcycles and scooter theft, it was agreed, should be dissected into two parts. These machines are categorised together yet their owners could not be more different. As one delegate suggested: "It’s almost back to the days of the Mods and Rockers, without the animosity."
Depending on whose set of figures you use, between 70pc and 80pc of all ‘power two wheeler’ theft concerned the scooters and mopeds, many riders of which did not want to be called motorcyclists. The stereotype here did strongly relate to the younger person, many of who were already involved in local level organised crime. This group, many of them already known to local officers, often succumbed to ‘peer pressure’ and it was felt could easily be controlled by local area policing.
We know that local area initiatives using ‘ground anchors’ for instance do work and the rewards can be almost immediate, some exceeding 80pc.
Superbikes on the other hand, mainly because of their desirability and value are still easy to steal, strip, clone and sell and therefore are always a prime target for organised gangs that now operate countrywide. Whilst transponders and microdots were of great value in identifying the 15,000 machines stolen each year, both expertise and intelligence are of continued importance when you bear in mind the facilities and experience already acquired by the gangs responsible for stealing them. It’s particularly poignant when realising that over the last decade very few gang members arrested for volume bike crime have received imprisonment.
Again the large or heavy goods vehicles devotees were appreciative of their manufacturers’ progress in security and while the recovery rate hovered around 50pc, 2000 vehicles still appear to be stolen every year. These criminals were themselves diverse, specialising either in loads, trailers, articulated, tipper and box van units all worth £25m to them. Appreciation was shown for another successful specialist police, business partnership, Truckpol, run now by officers from the Metropolitan Police specialist crime directorate who with their business partners, were felt more than capable of assisting and disseminating information on best practice.
Assistant Chief Constable David Ainsworth is the new ACPO lead in vehicle crime. In explaining to the conference the role of Serious and Organised Crime Agency and in particular their role with organised vehicle crime, he implied that the business sector, through partnerships, will be an important if not vital factor in the UK’s future fight against vehicle crime.
So, in essence the police actually know what’s going and in what volume. They also know, more often than not, whose doing it and where things are going or perhaps can offer a good guesstimate! The keenness and incentive still exists with many police officers, as several vehicle initiatives throughout the country have shown, many resulting in surprising large reductions in vehicle crime, but not everywhere sad to say, not yet anyway.
Police and business partnerships do work, but here’s the rub. The ‘multi agency approach’, an often used cliché over the past few years, seems to have floundered. The cracks have started to appear in the relationship with complaints of unwarranted secrecy and quite obviously this crucial information link has buckled.
The conference feeling from the non-police delegates was clear. We are all fighting the same battles and we recognise now more than ever the need for a real partnership approach. In relation to autocrime it’s probably more important than anything else to sustain its ‘low priority’ status.
About the writer
Dr Ken German recently retired from the Metropolitan Police, New Scotland Yard. He has what is thought to be the only doctorate in vehicle crime in the UK. He is a Fellow of the Institute of the Motor Industry, Fellow of the Institute of Automotive Engineer Assessors and Vice President of the International Association of Auto Theft Investigators (IAATI, visit www.iaati.org). He writes, lectures and runs an autocrime agency.
