Cops get 150 calls a day about crime... and 950 that aren’t
FORCE CAMPAIGN URGES PUBLIC TO ‘THINK WHO THEY REALLY NEED TO SPEAK TO’
NORTH Wales Police receives 950 calls a day which are nothing to do with crime, figures have revealed.
That means around 87% of the more than 1,100 calls to the force every day are about other matters, including mental health and council issues, as demands on resources increase.
North Wales Police Crime Commissioner Arfon Jones said that only 150 calls a day are actually about crime, as a new campaign is launched urging the public to think before dialing 999 or 101, to help relieve pressures.
Mr Jones, himself a former police inspector who worked in North Wales Police’s old control rooms in Wrexham and Colwyn Bay, recently visited the force’s Joint Control Centre in St Asaph, where this year they have dealt with an extra 5,600 calls to 999.
That equates to an extra 27 calls a day or a huge increase of 11.2%
In total, the centre in St Asaph handles over 400,000 emergency and 101 calls a year and, according to Mr Jones, many of them are unnecessary.
Over the past two years, the number of emails from the public has doubled to an average of 4,300 a month or 150 a day, with the number of webchats trebling to 1,700 a month or 56 a day.
The force is also launching a social media blitz to drum home the message this month.
Mr Jones said: “Many of the calls are not actually police matters and should be directed to other agencies, whether it be local authorities or the health board.
“You should only call 999 if there is a direct and immediate threat to life or property or if a crime is in progress.
“People need to think before they pick up the phone and decide who they really need to speak to.
“The problem is that, if there’s nowhere else to go, then they will ring the police irrespective of whether the police can deal with it.
“There are out-of-hours social services but not everyone knows how to access them – everyone knows 999 and 101.
“That raises the question whether other public services provide adequate capability to respond and I don’t think they do.”
Superintendent Neil Thomas is in charge of the control room at St Asaph and he said: “We are facing an increasing number of calls and we’re trying to educate the public that there are other agencies out there who might be more appropriate for their needs.
“We receive, on average, 1100 calls a day, of which 300 of these are 999 calls, and only 150 crimes per day on average are recorded in North Wales.
“Calls relating to individuals with mental health-related issues, social needs, vulnerable or people who are reported missing people are increasing.
“These types of calls clearly take longer to deal with.”
North Wales Police now have colleagues from North Wales Fire and Rescue and the Welsh Ambulance Service alongside them in the control room.
Superintendent Thomas said that the number of calls coming into the centre could reach 100 an hour over a sustained period and the majority of emergency calls are answered within the national guidelines of 10 seconds.
He added: “In a real emergency we would always encourage people to dial 999.
“But we do want to educate people to think first before calling the police because there are other options.
“Inappropriate calls tie up emergency lines and can put people’s lives at risk.”