Yes, there are more bobbies... but it will be a while before they’re on the beat
RECRUITMENT of new officers is going well says Thames Valley Police’s Chief Constable, John Campbell – but it will be a while before they’ll be seen on the beat.
“We’ve met our targets for the last few years, with more officers to come,” he said. “That’s an increase of around 90 officers. A lot of them will still be in training, so we won’t necessarily see a significant bump in terms of visibility (just yet).
“They don’t quite take us back to where we were before we lost a number of officers, but it’s a welcome addition that we weren’t originally expecting.”
The chief constable admits that seeing more bobbies on the beat is one of the issues that is regularly presented to him.
“I would like more officers, of course,” he admits. “(When it comes to staffing numbers) I’m a greedy, greedy chief constable. We have around 4,200 officers and we police a population across the Thames Valley of 2.4 million.
“We try and police in a way that enables teams to be local, familiar and accessible. Our PCSOs work in our community on a regular basis, and we have that 24/7 response capability when people are in need of an emergency response.”
CC Campbell said that the first wave of new officers have been drafted into help at a local level, while the next wave would be placed into a variety of teams including investigating crimes, something he feels is just as important.
“It is flattering to hear that people want to see more police because there are many parts of the world where they don’t want to, and don’t trust their police,” he continued.
“The fact that people want to see more of us we should regard as a compliment.
“Obviously I will do all I can to make sure we are as visible as we can be.”
Is Reading’s busy nighttime economy, with people leaving pubs and clubs in various states of intoxication, taking officers away from daytime work?
“We have a number of nighttime economy hotspots, busy places for people to go and enjoy drink, food and all those other things that come at weekends – long may that continue,” CC Campbell said.
“We want people to be safe and have a great time.
“It does mean we have a responsibility due to people fighting, and resorting to violence. We also need to keep women safe in those environments as well.
“It does take officers on very specific operations that reduces the amount of policing elsewhere in the force area.
“The more we can do to get people to have a great night and behave, the more we can do with licencees, and local authorities means I can then use resources for policing the rest of the Thames Valley.”
CC Campbell is full of praise for Reading’s Street Pastors who help out the late-night response.
“We’ve also got Operation Vigilant which is to make the nighttime economy safer for women and girls on Friday and Saturday nights.
“We’ve run those operations in Reading and have some significant success in identifying people that have, at best, unwelcome behaviour, at worse potentially criminal predatory behaviour.”
Late night anti-social behaviour from car meets has been a constant concern from residents – revving engines, racing along roads and ‘doughnuts’ in car parks have all been raised as issues.
“It’s not an offence if people want to meet with their cars in a public place,” he says. “But what can happen is sometimes people’s behaviours in their vehicles can become anti-social, driving around and breaking road traffic laws.
“That’s where we need to intervene and we have a number of operations across the force to try and reduce the impacts of those car meets.”
Knife crime is another issue that keeps coming up. In recent months, Section 60 orders have been placed across various parts of the region, most recently in Whitley. These powers allow police to stop and search people if they are suspected of harbouring knives.
Despite what seems like an ongoing catalogue of knife crime, CC Campbell says it has reduced by 10% over the past year
“Operation Spectre and amnesty bins are helping to get knives off the street,” he says, adding that the force has increased patrols, undertaken educational visits and worked across the force to help with the detection rates.
“We take it very seriously,” CC Campbell explains. “This is a priority for the force this year. We’ve managed to turn the corner significantly.”
The force has also worked to reduce other crime statistics, with robberies down 23%, and significant reductions in county lines – crimes that take place over more than one policing authority.
But despite this, CC Campbell is not resting on his laurels, which possibly explains why he feels greedy for wanting more officers.
“I’m never satisfied, I always want us to do better,” he says, adding that over the past two years of the pandemic, his officers have gone above and beyond to help keep the public safe not least during the period when covid was at its peak and officers were not vaccinated.
“They were risking their own wellbeing as well as protecting others,” he said.
“One crime is too many, so we are working hard, and working well.”