Southend’s District Commander, Chief Inspector Jo Collins, has said increasing public engagement and addressing local people’s concerns has helped to improve confidence levels and reduce offending.
Ch Insp Collins also cited the work of the force’s Town Centre Team, the importance of being highly visible in the community, and the strong partnerships forged with public sector partners and the local business community as being key to keeping Southend safe.
Across the district, crime is down by 9.6% with 1,940 fewer offences reported in the year to the end of April. Anti-social behaviour decreased by more than a third (34.6%) in the same period.
High Confidence in Local Policing
In a recent survey, Southend residents had the joint-highest levels of confidence in policing in Essex, the most confidence in the quality of service, and 80% believed that officers were doing a good or excellent job.
Ch Insp Collins said: “When I became District Commander in 2022, I spoke about building local relationships for the benefit of everyone in the district. “I wanted to challenge the perception that we were only focused on the seafront, increase confidence, and show people that we understood their issues and were there to help them. “We have worked hard to be visible. We’re running more engagement events in more places than ever before and the feedback from local residents has been encouraging. Maintaining the trust of the local community remains my top priority.”
Numerous Arrests and Prosecutions
Significant policing initiatives in Southend include Operation Union – which runs from May to September to deal with summer demand and has so far this year led to 23 arrests for offences including assault and drug possession – and the Town Centre Team’s Operation Raker, which targets the city’s most prolific offenders and has led to 50 prosecutions.
Committed to Ongoing Improvement
Despite the positive results, Ch Insp Collins said her team are always looking at how they can improve: “We are listening to people and acting on their concerns. We put operation in place after people made us aware of issues in York Road and Hamlet Court Road, we gave the residents’ association in Shoebury an officer to be a point of contact for their area, and we’ve concentrated on improving levels of communication with victims of crime.
“We know we don’t always get it right but when mistakes have been made, we learn from them.”
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