Lead: Police: Chief Inspector of Operations
Deputy: Council: Community Safety Manager
Named Contact: Community Safety Senior Officer - Claire Sills - Claire.Sills@Stockton.Gov.Uk
Other Agencies: North Tees & Hartlepool NHS Trust, PCT, North East Ambulance Service, Licensed Trade, Prubwatch, Harbour, Stockton Domestic Violence Forum and all members of SSP
Our objective is to reduce violent crime and increase feelings of safety. We will use a range of activity that will impact on violence both inside and outside of home.
Background
Nearly 20% of respondants thought that violent crime should be a key priority, with a further 13% identifying robbery and mugging as the sixth priority. Non-white respondants ranked Domestic Violence as the third key priority and nine wards also gave this a positive score with Ingleby Barwick West and Mandale and Victoria ranking it as the sixth key priority. Because we know that Domestic Violence is a hidden crime SSP decided that work on this issue would be included within violent crime.
Robbery an dmugging is quite low in our Borough with only 131 incidents recorded in 2006/07 and only 117 for 2007/08. We understand that this type of crime impacts on feelings of safety, (the over 75 age group who are the least likely to be a victim of this type of crime, ranked it as third key priority). As well as targeting those who commit this type of crime we will focus our efforts on providing reassurance to reduce fear of crime.
We have steadily improved in two categories that cover serious violent crime, Other Wounding and Serious Offences. The biggest increases are in Common Assault and Harassement, which covers a range of misdemeanours from pushing and shoving to verbal abuse. In many cases the victims dont report these incidents but if they are witnessed by a Police Officer they are recorded as violent crime.
Violent Crime is made up of a number of different types of crime and domestic violence can sit within any one of the categories. Domestic Violence is not an offence category so incidents have to be flagged.
Most violent crime is committed by someone known to the victim, with a significant proportion related to abuse of alcohol. We have analysed our data and we know that 80% of suspects are males aged between 15 and 24, whereas 46% of victims are female. We also know that we experience a seasonal increase with numbers rising during the summer months.
Three wards account for 42% of violent crime and this includes Stockton Town Centre, Mandale and Victoria and Newtown.
The chart below shows the rate of violence against the person per 1000 population population by ward.
| Ward | 2005/06 | 2006/07 | 2007/08 |
| Stockton Town Centre | 138.4 | 137.1 | 141.7 |
| Newtown | 32.6 | 33.8 | 30.3 |
| Mandale and Victoria | 29.0 | 25.8 | 28.2 |
| Hardwick | 29.2 | 23.0 | 26.1 |
| Norton North | 26.0 | 30.6 | 26.0 |
| Parkfield and Oxbridge | 28.0 | 23.7 | 26.0 |
| Billingham East | 22.3 | 26.7 | 22.9 |
| Norton South | 20.2 | 15.8 | 21.8 |
| Stainsby Hill | 25.8 | 19.8 | 20.3 |
| Billingham Central | 29.6 | 15.2 | 19.0 |
| Billingham South | 18.8 | 17.9 | 17.1 |
| Roseworth | 18.6 | 16.0 | 16.2 |
| Village | 18.5 | 14.3 | 15.2 |
| Yarm | 18.2 | 14.4 | 10.9 |
| Bishopsgarth and Elmtree | 10.3 | 10.0 | 9.2 |
| Grangefield | 12.0 | 8.6 | 8.2 |
| Western Parishes | 4.1 | 4.7 | 8.1 |
| Billingham West | 6.4 | 4.7 | 6.2 |
| Billingham North | 5.0 | 6.3 | 6.0 |
| Northern Parishes | 10.5 | 7.1 | 5.8 |
| Ingleby Barwick East | 5.7 | 4.3 | 4.9 |
| Eaglescliffe | 7.5 | 6.9 | 4.8 |
| Fairfield | 9.1 | 6.7 | 4.4 |
| Ingleby Barwick West | 7.1 | 3.4 | 3.9 |
| Norton West | 6.2 | 3.6 | 3.5 |
| Hartburn | 4.9 | 2.4 | 3.4 |
Recorded rates of violent crime have risen locally and nationally during 2005/08. In Stockton we have continued to see a decrease with 12% reduction achieved in 2006/07, which we have maintained in 2007/08. This is in spite of having an increased number of uniformed officers on the streets, which in turn increases the number of incidents that come to our attention.
Nationally we have below average levels of violent crime, In March 2008 we were the 7th best when measured against our MSCDRP group.
Partnership Working
The multi agency Vilent Crime Reduction Group hold monthly meetings to monitor the effectiveness of projects and interventions and in 2007 this group produced the first Violence Reduction Strategy for the Borough. The second strategy produced in May 2008 provides full details of the owrk that will be done over the next three years, to help us to maintain and increase the reductions that we have seen.