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TruckPol says there is no way to track truck crime

17th January 2008
Page 8
Page 8, 17th January 2008 — TruckPol says there is no way to track truck crime
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

nconsistencies in the way police forces collate their statistics make it mpracticable to track trends in truck crime. Chris Tindall reports.

['HE HEAD OF the national ntelligence unit that collates data ni road-freight crime warns that he 2007 figures are inaccurate and ncomplete because police forces Ire not supplying vital data.

TruckPol co-ordinator Detective i;onstable Andy Round explains hat soon-to-be-publishedstatistics vill show a massive fall in freight Tillie — but only because some orces are failing to provide the igures. And because each police orce records freight crime in its wn way it would be impracticable o trawl through the records.

Round also blames a lack of acentive from the government to et up standardised categories for ecording truck crimes. As a result aany are mixed up with general obbery or burglary statistics.

The Metropolitan Police Service s particularly poor: Round ielievesTruckPol is only receiving % of its truck crime figures.

According to Truck Pol's last nnual report there were 3,423 oad freight crimes in 2006. The aost recent 2007 figures, for Janury to September, show just 1,592 but Round estimates truck crime ose 5% during that period.

Every chief constable in the ountry has already received a equest for this data. But Round .opes the recent posting of a econd letter will bring a bigger esponse,which will be reflected in lore accurate figures Ilex!. year. He says: "We aren't getting the figures we should from the police forces. We've tried everything. I know what the problem is and we've tried to address it through ACP° [the Association of Chief_ Police Officers] and the Home Office. There's no system in place for recording freight crime. We would love to be able to compare last year with this year but we can't. The Home Office could almost solve the problem, but we have to work with what is in place."

Don Armour. manager for fleet information at the Freight TransportAssociation,says:-.1Lorry theft doesn't seem to impinge on people in the same way as gangs of youths beating up people. We're a little disappointed that we keep sitting in meetings with the Home Office and hearing about new initiatives being launched, hut we haven't made any real progress over the past couple of years."

A Home Office spokeswoman says: "We are developing a new crime statistics IT system that will receive a wider range of information about offences.

"We are beginning by looking at police forces flagging commercial burglary offences as part of the regular annual data. The system will provide the potential for vehicle crime to be examined nationally at a more detailed level."


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