15 March 2023

National Crime and Policing Measures

Police and Crime Commissioners are required to provide a statement on the contribution of their force to achieving improvements against the national policing priorities. These were introduced in early 2021 and use a baseline of year ending June 2019. The measures under the national crime and policing measures are:

 

• Reduce Murder and Other homicide
• Reduce Serious Violence
• Disrupt drugs supply and County lines
• Reduce neighbourhood crime
• Improve satisfaction among victims, with a focus on victims of domestic abuse
• Tackle Cyber Crime

 

This information will follow the guidance of providing a reflection on force performance for each measure with a comparison to the baseline. Data taken from the National Digital Crime and Performance Pack, the most recent date period provided is up to the Rolling Year November 2022, unless otherwise stated:

 

Reduce Murder and Other homicide

 

• Rolling year (RY) to November 2022 there have been 16 homicides in Kent, an increase of 7 (+77.8%) on the previous 12 month period.
• Homicide offences in Kent are low with an average of 1 a month.

Reduce Serious Violence

 

Firearms offences

• Data is currently under review and will be available for the next statement.

 

Knife related offences

• Data from NHS regarding u25 admissions for assault with a sharp object is not available, as such Kent Police have used proxy measures using Police recorded data.
• Tier one and two knife related offences have seen an increase of 5.3% (+12 offences) for year ending November 2022 compared to the previous 12 months.
• The Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) monitor knife enabled Serious Violent Crime (SVC) for under 25s. Rolling year to December 2022 there has been a 10.9% increase compared to the previous 12 months.

 

Violence with Injury

 

There have been 18212 offences, an increase of 1093 (+6.4%) on the previous 12 months, however this is below the June 2019 baseline of 20241 offences, down -10.0%, -2029 offences.

 

Robbery offences

 

There have been 1310 offences, an increase of 171 (+15.0%) on the previous 12 months, however current performance is below the June 2019 baseline of 1982 offences, down -33.9%, -672 offences.

The force has been awarded three years funding under GRIP to tackle serious violent hotspots. The GRIP activity is two-fold: 15 minute visible patrolling activity and long term problem solving plans. These activities are concentrated in the 29 GRIP funded hotspots across Kent and Medway.  My Community Voice is being used to inform and engage communities and will enable consultation to be carried out to understand what matters most to the communities we serve.

 

Disrupt drugs supply and County lines

 

• There have been 4198 Drug offences, a reduction of 146 (-3.4%) on the previous 12 months, however this is an increase on the June 2019 baseline (+32.4%, +1028). This offence type is influenced by proactive policing, levels and trends should not be considered a measure of criminal activity in relation to drugs.

 

Total drug offences are broken down into trafficking and possession of drugs exc. Cannabis and Possession of Cannabis:

• Trafficking in controlled drugs has seen an increase of 33.7% (+383) on the previous 12 months and above the June 2019 baseline (+53.2%, +527)
• Possession of drugs exc. Cannabis has seen an increase of 11.8% (+74) on previous 12 months and above the June 2019 baseline (+33.3%, +175)
• Possession of Cannabis has seen a reduction of 23.4% (-601) on previous 12 months and above the June 2019 baseline (+19.2%, +316).

Reduce neighbourhood crime

 

• There are 4 crime types under Neighbourhood Crime (NHC), Personal Robbery, Theft from the Person, Vehicle Crime and Residential Burglary.
• There have been 15614 NHC offences, an increase of 1860 offences (+13.5%) on the previous 12 months, however, is below the June 2019 baseline (-32.3%, -7448)

 

• For the 12 months ending November 2022:

 

• Vehicle crime has seen a 19.7% increase (+1382 offences) on previous 12 months but below the June 2019 baseline (-26.9%, -3086)
• Personal robbery has seen a 15.0% increase (+161 offences) on previous 12 months but below the June 2019 baseline (-32.1%, -584)
• Burglary Residential has seen a 3.2% increase (+155 offences) on previous 12 months but below the June 2019 baseline (-41.6%, -3530)
• Theft from the Person has seen an 18.7% increase (+162 offences) on previous 12 months but below the June 2019 baseline (-19.4%, -248)

Improve satisfaction among victims, with a particular focus on victims of domestic abuse

 

The force conducts three satisfaction surveys: Domestic Abuse, Hate Crime and Rape, all surveys are analysed and utilised as part of a continuous feedback, learning and improvement process, to ensure the quality of our service to victims and witnesses is first-class.

 

• Domestic Abuse – Overall victim satisfaction for rolling year to November 2022 is 86.9%; this is a small reduction on the previous 12 months 89.3% RY November 2021.

 

• Hate Crime - Overall Victim Satisfaction for rolling year to November 2022 is 83.3%; this is also a reduction on the previous 12 months, 85.1% RY November 2021 but an increase on RY November 2020 (80.5%)

 

• Rape - Implemented in April 2019, there are two key elements based upon whether the victim felt that they had been treated with dignity and respect, and whether they felt they had been treated fairly throughout the case.

 

• Rolling year to November 2022, 93.7% of victims felt that officers treated them with dignity and respect; a decrease of 3.9 percentage points on last year (97.6%).
• Rolling year to November 2022, 89.5% of victims were satisfied that they had been treated fairly throughout the case; a decrease of 1.2 percentage points on last year (90.7%).

 

In seeking to continually improve, the contextual data from these important victim surveys are available within the force intranet, accessible to those responsible for the delivery of investigations to better understand the service victims have received. Victim Satisfaction also features in the key Force Performance Committee, which is chaired by the Deputy Chief Constable and meets on a monthly basis. 

 

Tackle Cyber Crime

 

There is no local or national data for the first metric about confidence by the Police in response to cyber-crime. Therefore, a proxy measure of the number of recorded online/cyber-crimes where the victim is an organisation has been used. In the rolling year to November 2022 there have been 80 online related offences where the victim is an organisation, a decrease of 6 (-6.3%) on the previous 12 months period.

 

 

 

7. Be Visible and Responsive to the Needs of Communities.

 

Providing visible and local policing is at the heart of the policing model and remains a priority for Kent Police. Engagement is a fundamental part of neighbourhood policing and it is vital that the Force are responsive to the needs of the different communities by continuing to adapt and ensure the channels of communication are accessible for all.  Each of the 13 Districts is served by their own dedicated Local Policing Teams and Community Safety Units. CSUs focus on prevention, deterrence and community engagement, working in partnership to problem solve local issues, particularly where there is vulnerability and community-based crime and ASB. There are now an additional 28 school officers working across 68 schools in the county.