During the summer months of 2011, Cleveland Police Authority were out and about at community events asking the public their opinions on policing in their area.
The Authority consulted with the general public at the Redcar Half Marathon, Hartlepool Heritage Festival and Ridewell Event. Unfortunately, due to bad weather conditions, we were unable to consult at Middlesbrough Mela as planned.
Three types of consultation were used to gauge public opinion on Anti Social Behaviour issues in their area.
A questionnaire gained open ended opinions and views, the Voicebox (mobile diary room) recorded views on camera for compilation in a video. Visitors were also asked to decide how they would allocate local policing teams to tackle Anti Social Behaviour community problems.
In all, 713 people took part in the police allocation exercise, 326 people completed questionnaires and 13 gave interviews in the Voicebox. Of those who completed the questionnaires, 36% were from Hartlepool, 25% from Stockton, 22% from Redcar and Cleveland and 13% from Middlesbrough.
Overall, the following were observed from the consultation exercises:
- People were far more likely to think that Anti Social Behaviour had increased than they were to think that crime had increased.
- People were much more concerned by Anti Social Behaviour in their local area than by crime.
- When thinking about local priorities, people were most concerned by teenagers hanging around steets, drug dealing and drug use.
- When thinking about Force priorities, teenagers on the streets was seen as much less of a concern, with the key concerns being drug dealing, drug use and people being drunk and rowdy.
- By far, the most popular suggestion for dealing better with Anti Social Behaviour in the future was an increase in police presence on the streets, although some respondents did acknowledge that this would be difficult to achieve given the current budgetary pressures.
- Other popular responses were harsher punishments for offenders and more diversionary facilities for young people.
The full results of the Summer Consultation will be available for download from the Operational Policing Panel on 29 September 2011.
A short video of the collected Voicebox opinions will also be available on this page and in our video section in the coming weeks.