Safe neighbourhoods

In my area of London the police are laughed at!  They have no power it seems.  Too many people have no respect for them.  Criminals are allowed to get away with whatever they can.  The victims - myself included - have to just grit our teeth and bear it.  We have no voice.  It's a horrible society full of selfish, aggressive and corrupt people.  Where I live, young single mums scream and swear at their children then plonk them in front of a screen to keep them quiet while they 'do' drugs.  What kind of world is this for an innocent child to be brought up into?  Bad parenting.  Wrong decisions made by irresponsible people.  Then one bad decision leads to another.  So much 'wrong' then leads to criminal offences.  The police can't possibly keep up with everything that's going on.   We need every area of the community to be involved...to be vigilant...to 'see' rather than to pretend they see nothing and walk on by.  We should all work 'together' but unfortunately we don't.  

Given the current resources, I am amazed the Met still manages to Police with consent and am hugely grateful and relieved that they do. Many of the responses in this thread do little to add to notions of "safer neighbourhoods" but are quick to appoint blame and scaremonger.

Why have we come to believe that stopping crime or antisocial behaviour is the sole responsibility of the Police. It is a shared responsibility. We must all work harder to improve community relations. I'm not suggesting we all turn vigilante, but neither am I ignoring my own moral and social responsibility to stand up for my neighbours and my neighbourhood. 

With the long-running cuts to the numbers of Police on our streets and the rise of new crimes such as cyber bullying, moped gangs, online fraud, extremism and hate crimes, we need to find new ways of working together to ensure we all confidently share a safe and open London.

One thing I woulkd like to see is our empty high street shops put to good use with advice and actvities for communities. The creation of safe spaces where anyone can seek and receive advice and support from the Police, health workers, financial advisors and housing specialists. But this should not detract from front line services where officers are available to protect and serve (as they say in America) society from those who would do us and future generations harm.

I would be happy to join a working group to take positive ideas forward and explore new ways of making London safer, cleaner and greener together.

Having read many of the posts here, I am amazed that no person of authority has had the simple manners to apologise to the people of London and make reparations. Instead they show their complete contempt for the public by denying there is any problem and/or throwing spurious figures at us without context or analysis. Setting up task forces and enquiries fool no one, It is not about politics.That is a game of which backside gets to occupy a deckchair on the Titanic. The withdrawal of frontline policing in London began before Khan or Johnson.

How many young people have to be injured or killed, how many Mr Tomlins have to die before our rulers show any real concern or embarrassment let alone shame,( the death of one is a tragedy - the death of millions just a statistic).The police have not lost control of the streets; they have ceded it. Gangs have no nervousness about taking it up.

i know I sound angry but i don't think you can read the other commentators here without getting angry.All these experiences can't be wrong. And I know myself that I can't even take a quick trip to the shops without observing at least 2 examples of illegal,irresponsible and/or dangerous behaviour. Everyone has the right to enjoy the streets without stress and fear. Since retiring I am around my local area far more during the middle of the day and i have been shocked by the number of older people who one virtually never saw in the evenings or weekends who look anxious and frightened and appear to be trying to get home as quickly as possible. This is not the world I looked forward to.

There is an unspoken contract between the rulers and ruled. The public is forced to keep its side of the bargain. It is about time our rulers fulfilled theirs, Stop making excuses and prevaricating.

The West Borough Command unit is failing .We have yet again in Hayes area had another shooting ,this time fatal and no doubt to do with drugs .Only last week we had another local shooting and Hayes town is becoming a no go area for residents due to Drugs ,Asb .Newly built so called high end flats built near Hayes station where residents have reported to the Get West Newspaper of Drugs ,intimidation etc .The Commander states that neighbourhood Ward Policing is upto 94%in strength ,it is not in Hillingdon and we are being let down .!!

Policing is in a terrible state.  I had two pots of plants stolen from outside my house.  Pretty trivial in the greater scheme of things, but i had bought the pots and nurtured the plants for months.  I tried to report the crime by phone but the call was not answered.  I reported the crime on line.  I informed the police that I had CCTV footage in which the culprit was clearly visable and that the pots had my house number and post code on the bottow.  It was nearly a fortnight before the police contacted me.  When they did they had no way of taking the CCTV footage from my recording apparatus.  I went out, bought  a flash drive, emailed the police, who collected the drive and took a statement from me.  I then got an email from someone, saying the original officer dealing was on holiday and had I made a statement.  I said yes I  had and I havent heard a thing since!!  I am sure most police officers do their best, but there just is not enough of them for a population the size of London.   And why are jobs, where warrants not required, not being done by police staff?

Proper funding as the police are overstretched as it is. Increase recruitment so you don't have to officers from one area to help oversee events in other areas. 

Improve the 101 service

More bobbies on the beat, hadn't seen any policemen in my area for ages then suddenly 4 in one day. People need to see them out and about. Have more cuppa with a copper sessions but hold them in local church halls community centres.

Iwould like my area to have a police station, seeing Police patrolling the area frequently could be a deterrent therefore preventing crime instead of just dealing with it after the event, with local police patrols people may report low level crime/anti social behaviour which could stop things escalating.

Chiswick and Acton borders used to be a safe and pleasant place for residents of all ages. The diminution of the police presence and the closing of the Chiswick Police Staion has led to a growing unease in the community and a growth in the level of bold criminal activity, including personal attacks, robbery, theft from cars, vandalism etc. Knowing that the police are not sufficiently engaged, through lack of manpower or resources, has led to a growing boldness from criminals that is sometimes breathtaking. 

Chiswick used to be a very safe area for people of all ages but the diminution of a police presence and the closing down of the police station have given criminals the incentive to be bolder and more active in crimes of violence, robbery and vandalism. Their boldness, knowing there is a minimal police presence, is sometimes breathtaking.

Communication with residents seems to be a major problem for the Met and SNTs. No phone numbers available; not all SNT groups make email addresses available. They use ghastly Twitter - a completely alien media for very many of my neighbours - but fail to keep up to date on Twitter. They have sessions in local cafes etc to meet people, but have not advertised any on Twitter for a while, and the local SNT web page is not being updated right now.  They cannot even keep updated online and anyone without internet use abilities has had it.  You can get an answer from 101 if you call at the right time (ie not peak busy times), and you can make antisocial behaviour complaints via 101, but you don't hear back from anyone. You can leave messages for local SNT teams via 101 - ask them to call back. But who knows that you can do this? Not general knowledge.   Some SNT teams are better than others at this - but it should be consistently good and easy to get in touch with them throughout London.  

First of all the police need proper funding. What is more important police being available to attend crime scenes and investigation or putting in yet another very expensive (£Millions) cycleway from West London to Central London) ? Think about it! The original idea of SNT's was imtended to have police officers & PCSO's patrolling local areas with them not being used for anything else unless there was a emergency or very large event needing a lot of officers. Each ward had a Sergeant, 2 P.C's and 3 PCSO's (Some more in certain high crime areas). This has been whittled away over the years to become one sergeant for every 4 wards,now back to 2 PC's and 2PCSO's. The 2 Inspectors in my borough have been reduced to one. Too many SNT's in adjoining wards are off on the same day for weekly leaves i.e. 2 a week. Officers now get 28 days annual leave a year (was 2 weeks 30 years ago). !0% of officers are expdcted to be off sick but this has been overtaken. Courses and court dates take officers away from SNT's and front line officers. Very few of the 30,000 officers are on duty throughout the Met at the same time. Armedofficers, diplomatic protection, parliament and protection officers all have to be recruited from the forces total of officers. In my opinion ( I was a police officer for over 23 years and a Chairman of the first SNT in my area for over 5 years until I moved house) the best local policing ever undertaken by the force (yes it is a enforcement agency not a social Service) was the Home Beat system and we should return to that. To young to know what that is?  Well each beat had a dedicated officer with supervision by the Sergeants and Inspectors on front line policing.  My station as a PC West Ham had 3 Panda patrol vehicles 2 plain cars, a Fast response car and a general purpose van. We also had 2 motorcycles patrolling 24/7. What our present residents would give to see that amount of policing in their area now! Listen OK. 

What is a community leader? I don't think we have one round where I live. If we have I wouldn't know who it is. We did have a Neighbourhood Watch for a while, but we couldn't find anyone to run it. If someone volunteered, would they become the community leader by default? Worth considering for the kudos alone.

You would be able to spread the word more, and get more feedback by having Police Officers walking the streets, going into schools, libraries etc etc and chatting to people. I suspect you dont have the funding, but in order to reduce crime a more visable presence needs to be felt, and then more people will feel confident to go out, or report things or even to speak up when they see something happen in the street as they will know a local Police Officer is close by. At the moment I think the public is losing the link with their local Police and that can only be a bad thing.