Public to use phone to help catch crooks in 'game-changer'
The public will help to catch criminals with new technology giving them mobile phone alerts about crimes where they live in Staffordshire.
The Staffordshire Smart Alert App will provide crime and community safety alerts, messages about appeals and prevention initiatives before being further developed after its launch this year. A Global Positioning System (GPS) tool is also to be created to allow police to send real-time messages to a targeted area with the aim of helping to catch criminals more quickly.
Staffordshire's Police and Crime Commissioner Matthew Ellis dubbed the move as a 'game-changer'.
Matthew Ellis today reveals how technological advances will fight crime in 2016
The New Year is upon us and 2016 will be important, possibly a defining year, for policing across Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent.
It'll be a year of contrasts with the job of keeping people safe becoming ever more complex.
But at the same time, finances for policing, community safety and victims' services here in Staffordshire are in the best shape for some time.
The improving finances over the last three years mean we've been able to keep my 2013 promise of much-needed investment in cutting-edge technology for Staffordshire Police.
Love it or loathe it, the right technology will be crucial if Staffordshire is to have more effective, real-time, intelligence-driven policing.
It will also mean an extra 250,000 hours of visible local policing each year: providing mobile data devices to frontline officers means they won't have to head back to base for the simplest of tasks.
Then there is the new SPIRIT GPS technology currently being fitted to police vehicles. This means, for the first time ever, control room staff have real-time information on the screen in front of them about exactly where police vehicles are and the specific capabilities the officers in them have – making sure the right skills are sent to incidents faster.
January 2016 will also be when I announce which world-class technology company will become the strategic ICT partner for Staffordshire Police.
From an original field of nearly 50 potential partners, getting down to one will be a genuine game-changer taking Staffordshire Police to the forefront of state-of-the-art technology nationally.
New investment in Neighbourhood Watch and the introduction of the Staffordshire Smart Alert App will help to harness the 'people power' in communities to support the police in turning the tables on criminals.
But it is not just about investing in technology.
We must continue the drive of the last few years to spend public money in Staffordshire better. After all, it's not only how much money is spent on public services but how well you spend it.
It's also about making sure that a bigger proportion of the money available goes to frontline delivery, which is why I'm keen to see integrated back office support between police and the fire and rescue service.
Reducing duplication there means more money can go towards funding firefighters and police officers.
The fact is the nature and types of crime in Staffordshire, and across the whole UK, are changing. People are more likely to get 'mugged' or defrauded online than robbed in the street. And the perpetrators are more and more likely to be in another part of our country or thousands of miles away on another continent.
The threat of so called cyber-crime to people and businesses is real, as is the abhorrent sexual exploitation and abuse of children, often online or through social media. Even modern day slavery, including human trafficking, is a crime that's often hidden in plain sight... in Staffordshire too.
Changing crimes, different societal values, radicalisation of some and a world that's getting smaller because of technology means our police services must think and act differently in the future to tackle emerging threats.
All of these things require the wider investment in policing now happening in Staffordshire. This will build a police service that can not only meet the challenges of the future but help to keep people safe throughout 2016 and beyond.
But finally, despite the emerging threats and changing harm in a changing world, we must not lose sight of what makes British policing the most effective anywhere. The reassurance, the certainty and the comfort factor of the local bobby or PCSO knowing their local community and being visible to the public is something we must treasure, protect and build upon.
A traditional approach to policing supported by cutting-edge technology.
For more information go to www.staffordshire-pcc.gov.uk
