Tuesday 13 November 2012

More visible policing

You'll never have a policeman standing on every street corner and it would feel a bit odd if you did.

But many people say that they want the police to be more visible.  It's part of helping communities feel safe but it's also part of the police re inforcing their role.

I've been posting various items from my manifesto and today I am briefly focusing on this aspect - visibility of policing.

The police already hold meetings in communities.  And the PCSOs near me do a good job of turning up at events like fun days and running stalls.

But there must be a lot more that can be done simply to increase the visibility, and therefore easy accessibility of the police.

We all know the places in our communities where there is "high footfall" - that is there is a lot of people coming and going.  These are ideal locations for regular police "counters" where people can come and raise things, see their local bobby and make appointments if  they need to.  Yet this doesn't seem to happen that often.

Obviously you can't start discussing something sensitive, or sharing someone's private details, in the frozen food aisle at the Co op (!) but you can have other conversations, and these are the sort of conversations that both help communities be and feel safer and help the police in their work.

If elected I'll want to encourage this sort of approach to get the most out of the police/public interaction.

Let's face it, until they invent time travel we can all only be in one place at one time.  That's why its important the polcie make that one place count!

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