Police praised as crime continue to fall

LANCASHIRE Police Authority has praised the county’s force for continuing to improve service levels.

New figures show all crime in the county fell by 3.3% between April and November, while detection rates rose to 37.2%.

Nearly every category of crime fell during the past eight months in comparison to the previous year including vehicle crime (-6.8%), robbery (-3%) and assault with less serious injury (-3.9%).

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The force also exceeded its 90% target to answer all 999 calls within 10 seconds, achieving 92.5%, and further pushed up public satisfaction rates. A local confidence survey between February and October revealed 88.2% of residents felt confident in the force – up 2.2%.

The results continue to build on the achievements of 2009 which saw Lancashire record some of the lowest crime levels in nearly four decades.

Coun. Malcolm Doherty, chairman of Lancashire Police Authority, said: “These figures will be very reassuring to the residents of Lancashire and will hopefully contribute to an increased feeling of safety and security.

“The Constabulary’s performance is even more impressive when you consider the astounding success of 2009 which saw record lows across many categories of crime and further demonstrates the force’s commitment to protecting Lancashire‘s communities.

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“However, we are facing unprecedented financial difficulties and our attention must now focus on how this excellent performance can be sustained against a backdrop of diminishing funding over the next four years.

“Good policing is ultimately reliant on resources and there is no doubt that the excellent results so far this year can be attributed to additional enforcement action and extra police work. It is therefore inevitable that frontline policing will at some point be affected by significantly reduced funding.

“We will now look inwardly as an organisation and to our partners for solutions and support to ease this financial burden, but we must accept that they too are facing the same challenging circumstances.

“Our philosophy, however, remains the same – to protect the people of Lancashire and deliver a truly citizen-focused service. We will meet and tackle these challenges head-on and do everything possible to sustain our position among the top performing police forces in the country.”

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