APPREHEND YOUR THIEF
Public can play detective via smartphone
A POLICE phone app will allow crime victims to carry out their own inquiries.
They will be able to report minor offences like burglaries without having to speak to officers or visit the nick.
The app will allow them to gather evidence, interview witnesses and identify suspects.
Police chiefs believe it will make it quicker and simpler to report crime.
But critics say the MyPolice app will encourage the public to perform tasks traditionally carried out by law enforcers such as sending in crime scene photos or gathering witness statements.
Senior officers admit in documents linked to the scheme:
“Self-serving public can reduce the demand on policing.”
Victims’ Commissioner Dame Vera Baird QC said app users were expected to become “do-it-yourself” detectives.
She said: “When someone reports a burglary you cannot treat it in the same way as filling in a tax return.”
Sources say it is hoped to roll out the system nationwide.
The National Police Chiefs’ Council said the project was a “positive” development but had been temporarily put on hold through lack of funding.
A spokesman said it should be a “reporting tool and nothing more” as “investigative work would always be carried out by officers”.
COPS have developed an app so people can solve their own burglaries.
It smacks of policing on the cheap.
The dubious tech would let people report crimes without ever speaking to an officer.
Perfect – just what we pay our taxes for.
You will have to play Inspector
Morse, gathering evidence on your smartphones using the MyPolice app.
And you would even be asked to interview witnesses and identify suspects.
This is the police’s job. They should be doing this work, not the public.
We need more bobbies on the beat. Real cops who will physically be there for us when we are victims and catch the crooks.
That is the only way to truly turn the tide on crime.