Rural and Wildlife Strategy

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1 T Rural and Wildlife Strategy

2 Foreword One of our key commitments is that Cheshire Constabulary is here to support communities. When a crime occurs in a rural area we understand that this can have a significant impact not only on the victim themselves but in many cases their livelihood, and the community as a whole. In 2014, the nationwide cost of rural crime totalled an estimated 37.8 million. Rural crime here in Cheshire cost 730,000. However, we recognise that the effect of these crimes is not just financial, but also the long term sustainability for the victim s business and community confidence. Our commitment to our rural areas isn t just on paper. During the last six months we have invested in rural and wildlife training and now have more officers trained in this specific area of crime and investigation than ever before. We have also initiated a wide range of activity during our 100 Days of Action on rural crime. This strategy outlines the way in which the Constabulary will work to reduce rural and wildlife crime by making best use of its resources. We are committed to tackling, disrupting and preventing Rural Crime. We have spent time listening, understanding and working with those living in rural Cheshire, to really appreciate their concerns. We will continue to build on these relationships and work with the community to reduce crime and protect equipment and livestock from being stolen. By working with our partners we will bring offenders to justice and protect the rural communities from harm. We know that wildlife crime is significant and it can often be linked to serious criminal activity. Cheshire Constabulary has played an active role in recent national wildlife campaigns, and we will continue with our commitment to tackle the exploitation and abuse of wild animals. By working with our partners and communities we will reduce wildlife crime, target offenders and help to protect our rural areas and communities for future generations. Mark Roberts Assistant Chief Constable 2 - Rural and Wildlife Strategy

3 Definition of Rural Crime Any crime or anti-social behaviour that takes place in a rural location, or as identified by the victim. Cheshire has 17 Electoral Wards (Beats) that are defined as Rural village and dispersed and 12 that are defined as Rural town and fringe, making a total of 29 rural beats which together account for 64% of the Force geographical area. These 29 wards are populated by 15% of the Force s overall population 3 - Asset Management Strategy Rural and Wildlife Strategy

4 Background National Rural Crime Survey 2015 In May 2015, the National Rural Crime Network launched the largest ever survey into crime and anti-social behaviour in rural areas. The key survey results show that; 1. Financial impact of crime on rural economy is significant the cost to rural communities is 800 million. 2. Fear of crime is relatively high 39% of rural people are very or fairly worried about becoming a victim of crime, compared to 19% nationally. 3. Low satisfaction rates of police performance in rural areas 39% of rural people rate the police as good or excellent but amongst rural businesses this figure was just 32%. 4. Crime is under reported in rural areas more than one in four (27%) did not report the last crime of which they were a victim. 5. Rural communities are resilient the rural community spirit is strong with four out of five people feeling they belonged to their local community. 6. Lesson for Local Authorities and other partners two issues of greatest concern to the rural community were road safety and the other fly-tipping, which neither are solely police matters. The national picture shows that rural crime is under reported and the fear of crime is high. For many people, falling victim to crime or not, simply fearing the possibility of a crime can have a detrimental effect on their quality of life. We recognise that due to isolated locations, residents living in rural areas can feel particularly vulnerable and when a crime or incident does occur this can have a higher impact than in urban areas. 4 - Rural and Wildlife Strategy

5 Cheshire Rural Crime The items most commonly targeted by thieves across Cheshire over the last 12 months were all terrain vehicles such as quad bikes, plant machinery, tools and fuel, including farmers supplies of red diesel. Reflecting the changing nature of rural crime, cybercrime is a growing problem and recent data shows thieves are taking advantage of new targets such as solar panels. Policing rural areas requires a different approach. The huge geographic areas covered by our rural road networks, with less cameras and CCTV, can appeal to criminals. There is also the increasing sophistication of organised criminals profiting from thefts such as plant machinery, livestock, raptors and farm vehicles. The loss of equipment may not be noticed immediately and its detection can often be challenging. We understand how this type of crime has a real impact on peoples livelihoods and community confidence. Cheshire Constabulary has made a significant effort with preventative and enforcement work in tackling rural crime. We are now becoming more creative and innovative in the way which we do this, and our Local Policing Units are crucial to this success. At the beginning of 2015, we held a Rural and Wildlife conference engaging with, and listening to, the concerns of our rural communities. We then built on this with a presence at rural events, throughout the spring and summer, from large county shows and game fairs, to smaller village events and horse and livestock shows. We have listened, shared ideas, built relationships and learnt a great deal from this increased engagement. This has led to many new initiatives, an understanding of what matters to our communities and provides the basis of our priorities and objectives for the future. We know there is still more work to be done, and this strategy seeks to ensure the needs of our rural communities are met. FY2015/16 FY2016/17 FY2017/18 Rural and Wildlife Strategy

6 Wildlife Crime The buying, selling, harming or disturbing wild animals or plants that are protected by law. Crimes against wildlife take many forms including poaching, badger baiting, and persecution of birds of prey, taking wild birds and/or eggs and the trade of endangered species. Nationally, the approach is to identify those offences which have the greatest impact on UK and global wildlife and focus efforts to gain maximum impact. The priority areas are derived from information provided by national wildlife and nature conservation organisations together with information from the police. There are six current national priority areas, of which the following four are relevant to Cheshire; 1. Badger Persecution 2. Bat Persecution 3. Poaching (including hare coursing) 4. Raptor Persecution (especially golden eagle, white-tailed eagle, red kite, hen harrier, peregrine and goshawk) Badger Baiting usually involves digging out badger setts and making them fight against trained dogs, leading to the death of the badger and occasionally the dog. The dog owners often make considerable sums of money in either bets or breeding programmes as dogs skilled at targeting badgers are highly sought after. What may be seen as a rural and isolated crime is barbaric and often part of a more serious organised cross border crime. Poaching is the biggest and most frequent wildlife problem for Cheshire Constabulary. Poaching can take many forms from using illegal snares, chasing rabbits and hares with dogs, to trespassing with firearms. Poaching is still a crime under several acts, crops are often damaged, livestock scared, and farmers and gamekeepers are threatened. Intelligence indicates, although poaching may be viewed as related to anti-social behaviour, there are tangible links to organised crime groups. Our Commitment to you Effective policing on rural and wildlife matters requires engagement; we are much stronger when we work together. We will work with our rural community, partner organisations, volunteer and community groups, businesses and all other agencies that can help us provide a service which truly meets your needs. Our four main priorities are; Farm and agricultural Crime Acquisitive crime ranges from theft of agricultural machinery, theft of All Terrain Vehicles, metal, tools and livestock. This type of criminality presents a significant threat to rural communities and has a real impact on peoples livelihoods Rural Community Crime Anti-social behaviour, hate crimes, domestic violence, business crimes and drug misuse impact on those living in our rural areas as much as towns. Drink/ drug driving, speeding and road safety is also a primary concern for our rural residents. Wildlife and environmental crime The poaching of deer, fish, hare and game can often lead to other crimes like public order offences. It causes damage to stock and the natural environment, and can pose a health risk when illegal food enters the human food chain. Serious and Organised Crime Organised crime is not reserved for urban areas. The remote and isolated locations, combined with the high financial rewards gained for rural and wildlife crime, provide an attractive opportunity for organised criminal gangs. 6 - Rural and Wildlife Strategy

7 How we will achieve this Prevention Working with stakeholders we will do what we can to prevent crimes and incidents taking place and stop people becoming victims of crime. We will provide prevention advice and guidance to residents and businesses to maximize the opportunities to prevent, disrupt and detect rural crimes and anti-social behaviour. Actions include: Maintaining and improving our visible police presence in communities, providing an effective response to calls for help. We have more officers working rural beats and focusing on rural and wildlife crimes than ever before and have invested heavily in national recognised training in these areas. Provide advice and guidance to residents on staying safe and protecting themselves and their property from opportunist criminals. One example of this is the crime prevention work we are doing with CESAR and other crime prevention brands on tracking equipment on farms and plant machinery. Making these expensive pieces of equipment undesirable to thieves and increasing our chances of detection should they be stolen. We are also target hardening rural properties as part of Operation Shield, the Constabulary s unique DNA Marking system which is protecting homes and businesses by reducing burglary opportunities, deterring offenders and identifying and recovering stolen property. Increasing the number of Special Constables and volunteers working in rural communities. We have increased our Special Constabulary and currently have over 400 officers working throughout Cheshire and assigned their own beat areas. We have recently trained and supplied kit for Cycle patrols for our Special officers covering the more isolated areas. We are currently training 15 Special constables to join our Rural team and they will specialise in rural and wildlife matters. Developing and supporting rural watch schemes. In addition to RuralWatch, we are launching and developing numerous new schemes to improve relationships and fill gaps in rural areas. Cheshire HorseWatch has over 700 members signed up already in just a few months. Cheshire CycleWatch is also in its infancy but has over 200 members already. These schemes connect people with the police and create a two way communication of information and intelligence. Listening to resident and community groups to better understand our communities, acknowledging their worries and vulnerabilities in order to take action to deter and disrupt criminality and illegal activity. Our rural officers are focused on continued engagement with those living on their beat areas. We also attend rural community events, with our rural/ wildlife crime trailer, raising awareness of the work we do, and seeking continuous feedback from the community. Quarterly focus groups are held with community leaders, NFU and partner organisations. Identifying repeat victims of crime and anti-social behaviour and managing the way we respond to their needs. We use intelligence to identify current risks and threats, and look at longer term problem solving through collaboration. Rural and Wildlife Strategy

8 Intelligence Listening to what people tell us is important, as well as improving the way we share information internally and with the people that we are working with in communities. This will help us to identify problems and determine options that we can use to deter and disrupt criminality. We will: Work to identify people and groups that cause the most harm in rural communities. Each rural beat now has an assigned beat officer and PCSO, who have strong links with partners and community groups who look at long term problem solving within those beats, including close working with offender management teams. Better understand criminality that comes into our area from across our borders by sharing information with other organisations. In addition to our internal systems we are working closely with neighbouring forces, both operationally and strategically. We also attend regular strategy meetings with national organisations involved in this area of crime and investigation to share good practice and current information. Improve the way we provide information to residents, about those people and methods of committing crimes in their communities. Cheshire Police Alert is our free system which sends news, appeals, crime information and crime prevention advice direct to the community via or text. This also allows people to feed back any information. Our new volunteers within RuralWatch, HorseWatch etc are also signed up to Alert. We will be producing a rural/ wildlife calendar for dissemination within the community which will also contain seasonal crime advice and prevention ideas. Our rural team is often invited to speak at events/ colleges / community events and we see this opportunity to share the work we do, and provide information to assist our communities. Encourage people to report all crimes and incidents to the police. If crimes are not reported it makes it hard for us to gain a true understanding of crime patterns and incidents. We encourage our communities to report all crime and will support all victims of crime. We also urge the rural community to report any suspicious incidents to us. We are already seeing the benefit of this through our new rural schemes, where members are encouraged to be our eyes and ears in their local community. At the very least this information is used for proactive patrol planning, but it can often be that a minor piece of information or sighting can be that final piece of the puzzle we needed. 8 - Rural and Wildlife Strategy

9 Enforcement We will enforce the law and target specific areas of crime and those offenders who cause the most harm. We will: Ensure an effective police response to reports of rural crime and anti-social behaviour. You can contact us any hour, seven days a week and we will prioritise your calls, attending emergency calls within 15 minutes and non-emergency calls within 60 minutes. If your response is not time critical we will arrange for a rural officer to visit you at a mutually convenient time. Run operations in conjunction with local groups, partners and other organisations targeting rural crime and anti-social behaviour. We continually run policing operations specific to rural and wildlife crime and utilise the skills and knowledge of other organisations. Examples in the past few months have been Operation Leviathan, an anti-poaching operation run with the environment agency, and Operation Soapstone a successful investigation into the theft of quad bikes with the assistance of National Vehicle Crime Intelligence Service. Developing even stronger links with neighbouring police forces to combat and deter cross border criminality. Criminals do not operate within borders, so this cross border work is essential and something we will continue to build upon. Our qualified rural officers meet regularly with their counterparts in other forces, and often work together on operations targeting specific crimes or groups. Rural and Wildlife Strategy

10 Reassurance We want safe, engaged, cohesive and confident communities. To ensure this, we will: Ensure we understand the impact crime and anti-social behaviour has on people living in rural communities and provide an excellent service at the first point of contact. Tackling rural crime is a priority for Cheshire Police. In addition to local beat constables and PCSOs working rural areas, we now have 11 specialist trained rural / wildlife Constables, a Crime Detective Constable and 15 Special Constables. This team is dedicated to engagement, enforcement, investigation and detection of rural and wildlife crime. We will make ourselves more visible and accessible in rural areas so people know and trust us. Improve the way we communicate with people living in our rural communities and keep people up to date with current trends of incidents, activity, planned operations and police patrols. We are getting more creative and innovative in engaging with our communities and continually seek feedback on how we can improve this. In addition to Cheshire Police Alert, we provide a visible presence at many community events throughout the year. We are also using social media to raise awareness of rural and wildlife issues and trends and to celebrate the work and successes we have in relation to tackling rural crime. Develop effective key networks of people in communities that reflect the diversity of our rural areas. The success of RuralWatch, HorseWatch and CycleWatch has drastically increased our networks with the rural community and we now have volunteers from these areas working as part of our wider policing family. We know there is more work to be done and we will strive to develop further, and build upon these relationships. Continually seek feedback from people living in our rural areas regarding the way that we are working to deliver the promises made in this strategy. Cheshire Police has reinforced its commitment to the rural community by focusing on 100 days of action on rural crime. The initiative, which launched on 7 August 2015 raised awareness and highlighted what the Force is doing day in day out to tackle this important issue. Listing an action, event, arrest or operation each day, covering all areas of Cheshire and for such a sustained period, enabled us to reach huge numbers of the community. Social media statistics showed an average reach of quarter of a million per week. This initiative was launched to provide reassurance to the rural communities that we are here for them and also to raise awareness to all of the impact of rural crime. One of the added benefits of this initiative was the increased engagement and the growing number of responses we received each week. This has enhanced our knowledge of what really matters to our rural communities and what we need to work on in the future. CYCLEWATCH 10 - Rural and Wildlife Strategy

11 Key Milestones/Measures The below measures are the criteria that we believe show the impact of our work. An increase in the number of reported incidents from rural communities. Number of reported and solved crimes in rural areas specifically; Acquisitive Crime, Violent Crime, Criminal Damage, Anti-Social Behaviour and Drink Driving. Financial value of crimes from rural communities as supplied by the NFU. (It should be noted that this will be based on the value of claims made as not all cases result in a claim being made.) Measure the intelligence opportunities that led to positive outcomes in relation to rural crime. Work with communities and partners to agree tactical plans and increase the number of action days. Evidence of specific crime prevention and reduction initiatives targeting rural and wildlife crime. Quarterly master classes with partners/ other forces for What Works. An increase in the number of designated Rural and Wildlife Crime Officers across the Force area. A reduction in the number of complaints regarding the policing service in rural areas. An increase in the number of Police Volunteers within our rural community. Rural and Wildlife Strategy

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