British Transport Police are solving fewer than one in five crimes, according to the British Transport Police 2001-2 inspection.
British Transport Police are solving fewer than one in five crimes, according to the British Transport Police 2001-2 inspection. The report admits: ?Crimes on the rail network have a high proportion where the offender and victim are strangers. This can and does make investigation and detection extremely difficult? but is disappointed by the overall detection rate of 19.8 per cent.
The inspection report concludes: ?Despite the hard work of frontline and support staff there are few outstanding areas of good operational performance with most key results showing a fall away from the levels of three years ago.? However the report does praise the BTP for work on ?line of route? offences – ?offences of vandalism, obstruction or trespass on or adjacent to railway lines or property?.
The report by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary (ISBN 1 84082 723 8) adds that investigation of three major rail crashes since the last inspection – Ladbroke Grove (1999), Hatfield (2000) and Selby (2001) – ?has inevitably had a significant impact on the number of senior investigating officers (SIOs) available to investigate major crimes?. With 16.8 days lost per officer each year, the force has the worst performance of any police force in the country, the inspectors say, although morale is generally sound. ?There is urgent need to refocus effort around acquiring, analysing and then using crime intelligence to greater effect.?
The report does praise conflict management training provided for railway staff, ?particularly those in potentially confrontational roles, such as revenue protection?. (Separately, CS spray is being issued to BTP officers by March.)
As the inspection report points out, the British Transport Police has an aspirational goal, ?to keep the peace on our railways and make them safe and secure?. Unlike Home Office police forces, British Transport Police receives no direct Government funding, ?despite the fact that it is estimated that some 80 per cent of its work involves the policing of public space and law and order policing. The railway businesses meet all the costs.? The train operating companies (TOCs) take the view that they have a right to drive down the costs of their suppliers, according to the inspectors, ?including the police. This necessarily does have an effect on operational effectiveness?. In what might be termed a call for joined-up policing, the inspectors write: ?Crime does not end at the boundary of a railway station and from the passenger?s perspective the ?door to door destination? experience influences their preferred mode of travel.? While surveys find passengers have now slightly less fear of crime than previous years, more staff have such fear: in 1998-99 53 per cent of staff felt safe, by 1999-00, 51.1pc and in 2000-1 49.5pc. In 1998, British Transport Police embarked on a recruitment drive to recruit some 426 special constables over four years; by the inspection in mid-2001 only 68 had been recruited. See www.btp.police.uk
