A police campaign to make Scotland’s streets safer has been hailed as a success.
Safer Streets saw the country’s eight forces and the British Transport Police target those crimes that cause the public most concern.
The campaign ran from Monday 11 October to Friday 3 December 2004 and officers from every Force co-ordinated their efforts to deal with the issues that blight their communities the most.
Headline figures from the Safer Scotland campaign "Safer Streets" show: 710 knives seized, 6517 litres of alcohol seized from the streets, £2.42m of property vandalised. The national campaign – the sixth Safer Scotland to be undertaken by the Scottish Police Service – witnessed a vast range of police activity in every local community in the country. It targeted knife crime, vandalism and drinking in public places.
Chief Constable Ian Latimer, Chair of Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland Crime Business Area said: "This has been a very successful campaign that has seen a tremendous effort put in from all of Scotland’s police forces and the British Transport Police.
The figures released today will make for sobering reading, especially in relation to the amount of knives and alcohol seized and damage to property. We were aware that the subjects we tackled were those of the most concern in our communities and that they can have a detrimental effect on the quality of life for many people. I give a firm pledge to the communities that we serve in Scotland and to the people who commit these crimes: ‘Do not think that our work is finished with the end of the campaign. We are dedicated to working with our communities to eradicate these crimes and to make our streets safer’."
