National Churchwatch co-ordinator, former police officer Nick Tolson ([email protected]) explains the need for security at places of worship.
National Churchwatch began in April 2000 after several churchwatch schemes sprang up around the country and a need was recognised for some co-ordination and idea exchange. Three large schemes had been running since the early 1990s and have reduced crime against places of worship by more that 60 per cent in their areas. Churchwatch worked, but sometimes people were re-inventing the wheel time and time again when they could have learnt from the mistakes of the existing churchwatches.
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Nick Tolson was appointed the National Churchwatch Co-ordinator and the organisation was sponsored by Ecclesiastical Insurance. The Home Office fully supported the scheme and produced the video, Faith Secured with National Churchwatch to highlight the problem. At the end of 2000, the Methodist Insurance, URC Insurance, Baptist Insurance and ANSVAR also chose to sponsor National Churchwatch. Later this year National Churchwatch will become a charity. We are seeking a further national sponsor to join with the insurance companies, preferably from the security industry. We have to stop this crime wave, and we cannot so it alone!
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The Problems
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Crime in Places of Worship is nothing new. Most people, when asked, usually mention stealing lead off the church roof and it is true that this sort of crime has gone on for centuries. In the last ten years or so, churches have become targets for criminals who see them as easy pickings. Places of worship suffer from two forms of crime: repetitive, localised, low level crime such as criminal damage and petty theft; and serious crimes such as assaults on staff and antique theft. The most common by far is the low level crime. Usually this involves weekly or daily window smashing, graffiti and the like similar to the problems that schools suffer constantly. The small moneyboxes in the wall of a church are prised open for the few pence within them, or the charity boxes are stolen from next to the postcard rack. Most churches accept this as inevitable if they wish to open during the day. What is worse is that crime reduction officers often visit and say, "Well, if you do insist on being open, then you are going to have problems." The usual result of these petty problems is that the church officers feel obliged to lock the doors which prevents a community asset from being used by the community.
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You can understand their thought process. These crimes are probably costing £20 – £30 a week. Over the year this could add up to over £1500. That is a lot of money to a church who may only have a congregation of 30 people, most of whom are elderly. The only solution, it seems, is to lock up.
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In 1994, the Bath & Wells Diocese (covering all of Somerset) carried out a survey of 117 churches in the Bath area. This included both rural and urban churches, and asked many questions on crime and whether churches opened or closed during the day. The survey revealed a startling anomaly. The churches that were locked during the day suffered marginally less crime that the open churches, but the cost of that crime was ten times more than the churches that stayed open. To a security professional perhaps it is obvious. When a criminal arrives at a building he wants to enter he will use almost any means to get in. Most churches have porches which hides him away from prying eyes, out comes the crowbar and £5,000 worth of damage is caused to the mediaeval door as he jemmies it open. Once inside, he goes to the money box, prises it open causing £100 worth of damage and steals the £5 that is inside. Had the church been open he would have caused just £100 of damage for the £5. Had the moneybox had a cheap £2.50 padlock on it, then just £2.50 worth of damage would have been caused. You can probably see where I am heading here!
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Of course, some people may say that you shouldn’t let them get away with it, and they are right. If you have a repetitive thief who has hit the money box a couple of times, you start paying attention. Empty the money box twice a day, put a sticker next to it that says, ‘Stewards, remember to switch off alarm before opening box’, put a card in the door that says, ‘CCTV is operating in this area for your safety’, put a poster in the porch saying ‘Churchwatch scheme operating’. If the offences continue, start involving the police and security companies who may put a special constable in the area for a day or two, or the security company might be able to ‘demonstrate’ the CCTV in your church for a couple of weeks, or provide alarms. The list of ideas are almost limitless, so the attitude that ‘nothing can be done’ can be overcome, both from the church officials and police’s points of view.
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Dealing with the more serious crimes is not so easy. When it comes to personal safety, National Churchwatch are the only group in the country who specialise in teaching the clergy and churchworkers how to be safe within their working environment. Sometimes this can prove difficult. A bishop recently said to me: ‘Many clergy do not see themselves at risk or do not want to be seen to be so.’ And this is the crux of the problem. How do you help people who do not want to be helped’ One of the ways that National Churchwatch deals with this is to target clergy families. If the member of the clergy won’t play ball then he/she will often recognise that their family is at risk from callers at the door. We always ask: ‘Who answers the door when you are out at the Church Council meeting” Our seminars for clergy families are often well attended by the clergy themselves, so it is a way around the problem. Once a member of the clergy or church has accepted that there is a problem then there is a lot of sensible specialised advice available to show them how to be safe. In the end, the hardest thing to teach members of the clergy is how to close the front door on someone, and, for members of the church, when to run away!
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Other serious crimes that we are currently tackling include antique theft. Every year, thousands of items of furniture are being stripped from the places of worship in this country. Our cultural heritage is being slowly eroded away, yet very little is being done. Many items of furniture in a church (Usually a Church of England church) have been purchased back in the 16th century for a practical reason. They were not bought as an investment. The huge majority of these items are unprotected. The majority of these items are not photographed or recorded, or if they are they are of a very poor standard. It is a great frustration when some extremely valuable items are stolen just because a church would not pay £150 for an alarm to protect that item, and the record of it is unusable on the internet. National Churchwatch is encouraging churches to use Object ID as the standard for recording the property. It is encouraging digital recording and good descriptions being used to identify the property. Last year, every Anglican Church insured by Ecclesiastical Insurance (15,000 churches) were issued a free microdot kit. Slowly we are winning the battle but every week I hear of chairs, tables and chandeliers disappearing. A lot of churches could benefit from the purchase of monitored burglar alarms. Not only from a personal attack point of view, but from the obvious burglary point of view. Most churches simply believe that alarms do not work, or cost a lot of money or cannot be tailor made for their requirements. They do not realise the benefit of linking a burglar alarm with a fire alarm. One or two churches a year are lost to arson attacks. Many more suffer damage. This affects the whole community when it happens.
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Another problem is that the church officers are often elderly people who will not attend alarm call outs in the early hours. National Churchwatch has been looking at whether security companies could act as keyholders for a number of churches. Also, security companies could assist churches when they have drug and alcohol misuse within their graveyards. The security company could patrol the graveyard in the evening and turf out any unpleasant characters who may be their. That way, it is not the church that is seen as the ‘bad guys’, it is the security company, which is good for the church as they may want to help these people on other occasions. In summary, places of worship are going to have to wake up to the fact that security is going to become a necessity if they wish to continue to operate in the manner that they currently do. As commercial premises, schools and homes become more secure the criminals are going to move on to the easy target. In reality the only really easy target that is worth attacking is your local place of worship.
