Action to tackle violent crime remains police priority as reported incidents rise
A police chief is insisting that action to tackle violent crime including offences against women will remain a key priority as figures show incidents are on the rise.
Crime recorded by West Midlands Police shot up by 32 per cent in the year to December 2021, which the force said reflects the period when the country opened up after successive Covid-enforced lockdowns.
There were 347,135 crimes recorded in that period including domestic abuse. Violence against the person figures rose by 41 per cent to 157,489 offences with domestic abuse making up 43 per cent of all violent offending.
The force's Deputy Chief Constable Vanessa Jardine said: "We recognise that our biggest crime type between January to December 2021 was domestic abuse and much has been done to tackle this already. This work continues.
"We work closely with many charities and refuges across the West Midlands who are ready, willing and able to help - there is no need to suffer alone.
“Our wider strategies for bringing down crime are perpetrator and prevention focused, with extra attention to hate-motivated offending and exploitation. We continue to implement a raft of targeted interventions to improve public place safety, better manage offenders to protect victims and prevent further harm, and hold offenders to account for their actions – where working with partners as effectively as possible will continue to be a key priority.”
The force explained that efforts to encourage victims to report crime was bearing fruit. Stalking and harassment crimes rose by 67 per cent with 59,829 crimes were recorded as a result. Hate crime also increased by 25 per cent with 2,500 more offences recorded.
Sexual offences rose by 40 per cent, possession of weapon offences by 70 per cent and criminal damage and arson by 54 per cent.
It said it will continue to invest in key initiatives to help victims of stalking and harassment report crime and officers are now better trained to deal with such reports including use of stalking protection orders, promotion of the HollieGuard app for personal safety, a women’s safety survey and the StreetSafe service where women can identify areas where they don’t feel safe.
Promotion of Clare’s Law where checks can be made for information on a partner’s previous abusive or violent offending.
Work is also underway to improve officers’ knowledge so they are able to earlier identify patterns of this type of behaviour. Additional measures are being put in place to tackle serious organised crime and exploitation, serious violence and violence and intimidation against women and girls.
The force added that while robbery increased by 11 per cent including personal and business robberies the number of incidents were below pre-covid levels reported in 2019 and that rising vehicle crime is being driven by a global shortage of car parts.
