New study that shows police patrols cut crime is no surprise to officers

30 January 2020

A NEW study has shown that police patrols for just four hours a week at busy Tube stations cuts crime there by a fifth, but Essex Police Federation says it’s been talking about proactive policing for years.

And it wishes police officers were listened to.

The study, carried out by Cambridge University, showed that even 15-minute patrols were effective at deterring crime, and that the deterrent remained when the police weren’t there.

Essex Federation Chairman Steve Taylor said it was “disappointing” that police officers’ experiences hadn’t been listened to. But he added: “If it takes a professor to do a study to tell us what we already know, if that’s the only way that people will listen, then I guess the message is getting through eventually.”

The study also found that, on the days when police were patrolling, crime in the rest of the Tube station fell almost as much as crime on platforms. The researchers said the experiment showed how effective short bursts of patrols could be, but this comes as no surprise to police organisations that have long pushed for more police visibility on the streets.

“The value of proactive policing is well known and as we move out of a period where we couldn’t afford to be as proactive as we wanted to be, we very much hope to see a return to more proactive policing,” said Steve. “Prevention is always better than cure.”

He said he wished police officers were asked for their professional views. “We’re saying these things because we care about what we do, we care about our communities, we care about policing and keeping people as safe as we can.

“We also have a degree of knowledge. We know what we’re talking about.”