Safe Neighbourhoods
By Rab MacWilliam
‘Sorry we’re a bit late. We’ve just been helping to close down a crack house’.
The petite young woman in Z Bar didn’t seem at all concerned when she told me this. As a PC Support Officer in Clissold Ward, it seems to be all part of Claire’s job.
The Safer Neighbourhood teams were formed a couple of years ago in an initiative to bring policing back to the streets and to form enduring relationships with the local communities in Hackney. Prior to this, the sight of police officers walking the streets around here was virtually unknown. They seemed to confine themselves to tearing up the High Street in high-performance squad cars every thirty seconds with their sirens on at full volume, scattering (and alienating) people instead of patrolling the manor on foot. So the Safer Neighbourhood plan seemed a welcome one.
Each ward in Hackney now has a sergeant, two PCs and three PCSOs. In the case of Clissold the sergeant, Sue Wright, and her team are based in Stokey police station and they are charged with combating non-emergency crime, anti-social behaviour and other neighbourhood problems and niggardly disagreements which perhaps would not necessarily enter the radar of the regular Old Bill.
The team has no powers of arrest but that’s not really what they’re there for. One of the PCSOs stressed the importance of their high visibility on the streets and in the estates, and their knowledge of what’s going on in the area. ‘The public get to know us’, she said, ‘and we do what the public want us to do’. Their main problems appear to be gangs of kids hanging around causing a nuisance, motor scooters (‘a nightmare’), people cycling on the pavements, drug dealing, dropping litter and all the annoying ways in which people can behave in the inner city. Although they admit that many people see their uniform as a ‘no-no’, they regard themselves as a positive force in their ward. They certainly appear committed and friendly enough.
They are attempting to build up long-term community support for their activities, and one way they are doing this is by holding a community meeting every three months at the Howard Road Resource Centre to discuss issues of local concern. They are currently looking for around 10-15 people from all cultures and social backgrounds to join the Community Advisory Panel which chairs this meeting. If you are interested in becoming involved, phone 07879 603106 (they all share this mobile number).
Even if you don’t want to be formally involved, they’d like you to come along anyway. If you don’t ask, you don’t get. |
