Police to stop attending burglaries and other 'non urgent' crimes as part of radical shake up
Police officers will no longer attend ‘non-urgent’ crimes such as burglary and public disorder as part of a force shake-up.
From this summer, calls to Staffordshire Police's 101 number will be diverted to a Resolution Centre at Hanley Police Station in Stoke-on-Trent.
Crimes will be dealt with by the call centre if a ‘blue light’ response is not deemed necessary.
Members of the public will speak over the phone, or online to ‘specialist investigators’ who will gather written, audio and video evidence.
Other incidents to be handled by the resolution team include theft, anti-social behaviour, minor road traffic collisions, fraud and forgery.
Convenient
Staffordshire Police chief constable Gareth Morgan said: “The Resolution Centre will help us improve our service and, in many cases, make it faster for the public.
“By providing a telephone-based response, it’s also far more convenient and makes us more responsive to the needs of the public – many of whom want just to speak to an officer rather than wait at home for one.
“The public should also be clear that where we need to send an officer we will do so, and indeed we expect The Resolution Centre to enable us to respond better to emergency incidents.
“It will also enable us to increase the number of community-based police officers, working in neighbourhoods, carrying out preventative work.”
The centre launched as a pilot in the north and east of Staffordshire in December and has resolved more than 1,400 incidents.
It will be rolled out to the rest of the county by the summer.
Chief constable Morgan added: “We will continually review The Resolution Centre to ensure it is working how we envisage but the results to date give clear indication of the positive long-term impact this can have on the service we provide.”
