The four crime types that this years operation focussed on are:
- youths causing annoyance
- young people causing problems due to alcohol consumption
- mindless criminal damage
- small deliberate fires.
The practitioner group
For this years operation we brought together a range of practitioners from Wigan Council, Greater Manchester Police (GMP), Greater Manchester Fire & Rescue (GMFRS), Wigan & Leigh Housing, and Wigan Leisure & Culture Trust. Using the information gathered by the Council's Partnership Support & Strategy Unit (PSSU) the group exchanged ideas and an action plan was drawn up to tackle these problems over the summer months.
The results
The full operation evaluation is currently in production and the full report will be posted on the Safer Wigan website in the near future. Here’s a run down of some of the activities we completed during the operation:
School activity packs
A group of volunteers from the Fire Service, WLCT, and Wigan Council stuffed 1300 packs for year 8 school children in 6 high schools in the hot spot areas. The packs contained details of all the activities being laid on over the summer.
The packs were handed out by GMP's school based police officer; we didn’t manage to get to all of the schools in time and those schools we missed kindly handed out the packs and talked to their pupils about anti social behaviour.
More information on the activity packs
- GMP’s school based police officer delivered assemblies in schools in the hotspots on anti social behaviour and criminal damage and handed out the information packs.
- WLCT laid on their busiest programme of activities yet including summer sports camps and canalside activities.
- GMP and the Council’s Neighbourhood teams visited residents who experienced a lot of ASB and criminal damage in the past to give them some extra support. They also visited those young people who often get into trouble at this time of year to encourage them to get involved in the activities provided instead of getting into trouble.
- The Councils Environmental Crime team worked with GMFRS to remove flammable materials dumped at hotspot locations to prevent fires from being started.
- Calls to the Police about ASB were reviewed daily and a Police volunteer fed back to each of the callers within 24 hours of their call.
- Radio adverts were aired on Wish FM to warn adults of the penalties they face for supplying young people with alcohol.
PAYP
In addition to the activities laid on by WLCT, Wigan Council’s Positive Activities for Young People (PAYP) team arranged activities in Beech Hill, Higher Folds, Atherton, and Ince including archery, arts and crafts, sports, and more. Each of their events attracted up to 150 young people. They also participated an outdoor education festival at Scotsmans flash that attracted 300 young people from across the Borough.
Margaret Wright, PAYP Key worker for Ince said: “the young people were really keen and enthusiastic and the parents and young people who attended gave really good feedback. They really appreciated events being organised in their own communities.”
Kim Curless, PAYP coordinator, said: “The events were a huge success; I would like to say a big ‘thank you’ to all the partners who supported the events but more importantly the young people and parents who made the events a success.”
- GMP and Trading Standards teamed up to catch traders selling alcohol to young people. They made some significant seizures and there are prosecutions pending. They did 14 tests over 4 key nights and caught out 3 traders. They used CCTV to pick up proxy sales of alcohol (where an adult buys alcohol and passes it on to children).
- Several Acceptable Behaviour Contracts (ABC’s) and Anti Social Behaviour Orders (ASBO’s) were issued in the Beech Hill area.
- Wigan Councils Youth Offending Team (YOT) teamed up with Greater Manchester Police, the Council's Neighbourhood teams, Young Peoples Drug and Alcohol Services (YPDAT), and Positive Activities for Young People (PAYP) to provide support to young people who were likely to get involved in ASB and criminal damage to encourage them to stay out of trouble and get involved in alternative activities.
- Police Community Support Officers (PCSO’s) issued 61 contact cards to young people engaging in anti social behaviour. The Neighbourhood Teams will contact the young people and their parents to address their behaviour.
- The Young People’s Drug & Alcohol Team (YPDAT) worked with 174 young people providing workshops on drugs and alcohol and on peer pressure.
- GMP patrolled the hotspot areas and times of the day when problems were most likely to occur.
Recommendations for next year
The operation was our biggest and most complex to date and has taught us a lot. We are already looking at what did and didn’t work so we can make next year’s operation even better.
Our main recommendation was to prepare our schools packs earlier and to liaise with the schools at the beginning of the year to make sure we all have plenty of time to prepare both the activity packs and the talks to young people.
Firestoppers
The Firestoppers phone line received an increased number of phone calls during the operation. Unfortunately a large number of callers hung up when they realised it was an answer machine.
As a result the phone line will now be transferred to the Fire Service’s Contact centre during the day to give callers the chance to speak to someone. The answer machine will be used from 5pm to 9am.
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