Correspondence

Crime and policing news update: March 2016

Published 13 April 2016

1. International Crime and Policing Conference 2016

The second Home Office International Crime and Policing conference, on the theme of modern crime prevention, took place on 22 and 23 March 2016. The conference brought together 120 leading experts to share a wide range of perspectives on crime.

The Home Secretary gave the main speech in which she launched the modern crime prevention strategy, which sets out our approach to dealing with the 6 main causes of crime (alcohol, drugs, opportunity, the effectiveness of the criminal justice system, character and profit). She also announced a range of additional measures being taken to prevent crime, including the voluntary agreement with major retailers on a set of principles to prevent the underage sale of knives, and the publication of a buyer’s guide for mobile devices, which highlights the cyber security features the public should look out for when purchasing or using smartphones and tablets.

The conference was opened by the Minister for Internet Safety and Security, Baroness Shields, who spoke about the government’s work to prevent cyber crime and online child sexual exploitation here in the UK and around the world. In particular, she cited the government’s WePROTECT initiative, which sees international law enforcement, governments, technology companies and civil society organisations working together to protect victims and bring perpetrators to justice; and the child abuse image database (CAID), which supports law enforcement agencies to pursue offenders involved in child sexual exploitation and seeks to safeguard the victims.

The Minister for Preventing Abuse, Exploitation and Crime, Karen Bradley, gave the closing conference speech, in which she outlined the government’s work in preventing crime against the most vulnerable in society, and in particular, violence against women and girls and modern slavery. She highlighted the refreshed violence against women and girls strategy, which sets out a package of measures to support the government’s ambitious vision of eliminating these crimes. The minister spoke of the significant progress made in fighting modern slavery, and the real impact the landmark Modern Slavery Act is now beginning to have. As well as focusing on dealing with criminality against vulnerable people, the minister talked about work to deal with the causes of vulnerability, including the government’s approach to dealing with drug misuse, and the Mental Health Crisis Care Concordat, which ensures that people experiencing a mental health crisis receive the most appropriate care.

During the conference, delegates heard from a range of speakers. Chief Greg Suhr of the San Francisco police department talked about the importance of early intervention with children, and the challenges of policing a city where gun ownership is the norm. Dr Kiran Bedi, the first woman in the Indian police service, spoke about her work on crime prevention. Polly Neate of Women’s Aid spoke about dealing with domestic abuse and the importance of a needs-based approach to victims involving long-term support, and former computer hacker Daniel Cuthbert explained how hacking has changed from being a curiosity in the 1990s to becoming a crime in the 2000s.

Conference speeches, videos and crime prevention research papers are available.

2. Modern crime prevention strategy

The Home Secretary launched the new modern crime prevention strategy at the International Crime and Policing Conference on 23 March.

Crime has fallen rapidly over the last 20 years. As it has fallen it has also changed, as must our approach to crime prevention. While ‘traditional’ high volume crimes like burglary and street violence have more than halved, previously ‘hidden’ crimes like child sexual abuse, rape and domestic violence have all become more visible, if not more frequent, and there is growing evidence of the scale of online fraud and cyber crime.

The strategy has a particular focus on crime enabled by technology, and how new technologies can be used to prevent crime. It addresses what the evidence suggests are the 6 causes of crime – opportunity, character, the effectiveness of the criminal justice system, profit, drugs, and alcohol – and references a wide variety of crime types. It also sets out a range of measures that will make crime harder to commit and less attractive to criminals:

• opportunity: by removing opportunities for criminals to offend, offline and online
• character: by intervening early with those exposed to factors that might lead to a high propensity to commit crime
• the effectiveness of the criminal justice system: by ensuring that we have a system that acts as a powerful deterrent to would-be offenders
• profit: by making it harder for criminals, particularly organised criminals, to benefit financially from their crimes
• drugs: by publishing a new drug strategy, building on the approach published in 2010 to restrict the supply of drugs and prevent organised crime behind the drugs trade, prevent drug misuse in our communities, help people resist getting involved in drugs, and support people dependent on drugs through treatment and recovery
• alcohol: by making the night time economy safe so that people can consume alcohol safely without fear of becoming a victim of alcohol-related crime or disorder

The strategy also emphasises that crime prevention is most effective when government, law enforcement agencies, businesses, academia, local authorities, voluntary sector organisations and the public themselves all play their part in preventing crime.

3. Retailers sign up to new measures to prevent knife crime

At the International Crime and Policing Conference, the Home Secretary announced an agreement of principles to prevent knife crime between the government and the following major retailers:

• Tesco
• Lidl UK
• Amazon UK
• Wilko
• Argos
• Morrisons
• Asda
• Poundland
• Sainsbury’s
• John Lewis
• Waitrose

The retailers have agreed to regular staff training, safely displaying and securely packaging knives, raising public awareness of age restrictions, and robust age verification checks for knife sales whether in-store, or if ordered online, at point of collection or delivery. It has been supported by the British Retail Consortium. Ebay UK and Amazon have also made important commitments for their respective marketplaces.

The 6 voluntary principles include a requirement for law enforcement to conduct follow-up test purchases of knives in 6 months and to provide feedback to retailers to take action where there are breaches to the law. The government will work with the British Retail Consortium to extend this agreement to other retailers.

4. Latest mobile phone security advice

The Home Office is working with the mobile phone industry to ensure that consumers understand the importance of mobile phone security, and to help them avoid becoming a victim of theft.

The joint Home Office and Behavioural Insights team paper mobile phone security provides an updated picture of how mobile phones are stolen and who is most at risk, alongside the latest findings from the Behavioural Insights team’s mobile phone theft ratio about specific models targeted by thieves. The paper suggests that new security features introduced by manufacturers have had a positive impact on theft, and information published on the police.uk website signposts consumers to the various anti-theft features now available.

It is, of course, important that these security features are enabled to secure the full benefit, and the Home Office will continue to work with the industry to identify opportunities for promoting messages to consumers about the importance of security when purchasing and using a mobile phone.

5. New guide to inform consumers about mobile devices’ security features

The Home Office has produced a buyer’s guide to inform consumers about important security aspects of mobile devices, such as smartphones, tablets and laptops. The guide outlines 7 security areas to check for when choosing or using a mobile device, helping consumers to make informed choices on which security features are important to them. The guide has been developed in conjunction with CESG (the UK’s National Technical Authority for Information Assurance).

Later this year, the Home Office will publish the vendors’ own guidance, which will provide additional information on how the security features outlined in the buyer’s guide can be found or operated on their particular device.

6. Advice to help consumers stay safe online

To make the public aware of the kinds of fraud that can commonly occur when they are shopping or banking online, the Home Office has produced a guide for consumers, which draws on real life, anonymised examples of crimes reported to Action Fraud.

As well as setting out some of the common methods used by fraudsters to target members of the public when using online financial and retail services, the report also provides advice on how the public can protect themselves from these types of frauds.

7. Violence against women and girls strategy published

Protecting women and girls from violence and supporting victims remain government priorities. The government published its new violence against women and girls strategy on 8 March, to coincide with International Women’s Day.

The strategy sets out an ambitious programme of reform to ensure all victims of abuse receive the support they need. We are also transforming services to:

• support early intervention to stop violence before it happens
• prevent abusive behaviour from becoming entrenched
• stop perpetrators moving from one victim to the next
• bring more perpetrators to justice

The government announced it will increase the funding to £80 million to prevent violence against women and girls. This will help to achieve both our goals of working with local commissioners to ensure a secure future for rape support centres, refuges and female genital mutilation and forced marriage units, while creating a major change across all services so they focus on early intervention and prevention.

8. NSPCC’s annual child protection conference

The NSPCC is hosting its flagship child protection conference, How safe are our children? 2016 on 21 to 22 June at the Royal College of Physicians in London. The conference provides child protection professionals with the opportunity to debate, question and share insights about the latest strategies, policies and programmes to prevent child abuse and protect children.

Delegates will hear speeches from:

• Rt Hon Nicky Morgan MP, Secretary of State for Education
• Lynn Saunders, Governor of HMP Whatton
• Professor Tanya Byron, psychologist and writer
• Johnny Gwynne, Director of Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre

Plenary panels and workshops will cover the most recent developments in policy and highlight cutting-edge practice from across the UK.

The NSPCC will also be launching the ‘How safe are our children? 2016’ report, a compendium of the latest child protection data that exists across the 4 nations at the conference.

Find more information and book your place.

9. Reforms to the Independent Police Complaints Commission

On 7 March, the Home Secretary announced her intention to create a new governance model for the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC). This will provide clearer lines of accountability and decision-making and greater capacity to secure and maintain public confidence in the police complaints system.

The IPCC will be renamed the Office for Police Conduct. This new name reflects the changes to the organisation and its important function of investigating serious and sensitive matters involving the police, including deaths and serious injuries. The Office for Police Conduct will be led by a Director General, who will be a crown appointment, and will have ultimate responsibility and accountability for casework decisions. A board, chaired by the Director General and consisting of a majority of non-executive members, will determine strategy. The board will provide financial management, as well as providing support and advice to the Director General in carrying out his or her functions and monitoring the carrying out of the those functions.

These changes follow an independent review by Sheila Drew Smith and the Home Office’s consultation on changes to the governance of the IPCC. The government’s response to the consultation was also published on 7 March, which sets out the plans to reform the governance arrangements of the IPCC to ensure they are fit for purpose now and in the future.

10. Government announces amendments to the Policing and Crime Bill

The government introduced the Policing and Crime Bill, which sets out new legislation to finish the job of police reform. These measures will further improve efficiency and accountability and build confidence in policing. The government has made amendments to the bill, including creating a new offence of breaching police bail in terrorism cases, and restructuring the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

The bill is currently being considered in commons committee, which is due to complete by 14 April. The government amendments at committee stage include:

• emergency services collaboration: enabling the ‘single employer’ model to apply to metro mayors in the same way that it applies to police and crime commissioners
• reforming the governance of the Independent Police Complaints Commission: the organisation will be re-named the Office for Police Conduct headed by a Director General and with corporate governance provided by a unitary board

More information about the Policing and Crime Bill is available.

11. New system to reduce the risk of deaths caused by guns

The vast majority of people who hold a firearms certificate do so without posing a risk to themselves or others. However, there have been recent cases where legal gun owners have carried out shootings after the onset of depression or dementia. In such cases the GP may be aware of the patient’s health condition but not that they own a gun, while the police will be aware they hold a gun licence, but not that they are suffering from depression or dementia.

To improve information sharing between GPs and the police and reduce the risk of future tragedies, a new firearms licensing system came into effect on 1 April. Under the new system:

• GPs will place a firearm reminder code on the patient’s record when they have been issued with a firearm licence, so the GP will know the person is a gun owner when they visit the surgery (GPs will be able to inform the police licensing department if the patient’s health deteriorates after the gun licence is issued)
• new guidance has been published to help GPs and the police operate the new system (responsibility for deciding if a person is suitable to hold a firearm certificate remains with the police)
• later this year further improvements are planned so that every applicant’s GP will be contacted by the police before issue of the firearm licence

The new system was developed by the British Medical Association, the police, shooting organisations and the Information Commissioner’s Office. Guidance for applicants, the police and GPs has been published, and a new firearms application form has been introduced, which makes clear to applicants that information about their health will be shared between GPs and the police.

12. Conference on the care and treatment of offenders with intellectual or developmental disability

The National Autistic Society is hosting a 2 day conference specifically designed for people who work with offenders with a learning disability and/or developmental disabilities. The conference offers delegates an opportunity to learn new strategies and share good practice. The conference also offers unparalleled networking opportunities for delegates from the UK and overseas.

The conference is taking place on 19 to 20 April at the Marriott Renaissance Hotel in Manchester. You can find more information about the conference and register to attend on the National Autistic Society’s website.

13. Speeches

• Karen Bradley’s speech on preventing crime against the most vulnerable at the International Crime and Policing Conference 2016
• The Home Secretary’s speech on the modern crime prevention strategy at the International Crime and Policing Conference 2016
• Baroness Shields’s speech on preventing crime in the digital age at the International Crime and Policing Conference 2016
• The Home Secretary’s statement to Parliament on the Brussels terror attacks

14. International Crime and Policing Conference videos

These videos were shown at the conference:

• stopping modern slavery in business: shows how the Modern Slavery Act 2015 is vital in preventing modern slavery
• tackling cyber crime together: sets out the complex nature of cyber crime and describes how law enforcement, industry and banks are tackling cyber crime