Five police forces miss targets on cutting street crime

Five of the 10 police forces told by the Government to get Britain's spiralling street crime problem "under control" have missed their targets, David Blunkett said yesterday.

The Home Secretary an-nounced the results of the Government's £31m Street Crime Initiative, set up to counteract a 28 per cent annual rise in street robberies and snatch thefts. Claiming success for the programme, Mr Blunkett saidoffences between March and September had fallen by 10 per cent compared with the same period last year.

The total number of offences in the areas covered by 10 big city forces fell by 4,618, from 46,415 to 41,797.

But the Merseyside and South Yorkshire forces reported increases of 22 per cent in street crime, with Nottinghamshire recording a rise of 19 per cent and West Yorkshire a 7 per cent upturn. Greater Manchester recorded no change from the previous year.

Mr Blunkett expressed disappointment at the failing forces yesterday. "The judge and jury will be the people on the ground and we expect a lot better from them," he said.

But the Home Secretary, who announced a further £60m to pay for the extra prison places needed to cope with a rise in jail sentences, said the Government would continue funding the initiative.

He said nine of the 10 forces had reduced street crime since the initiative formally began in April, resulting in a 16 per cent fall in offences during the past six months. He described as "Sod's Law" the fact that the one force that had failed to improve in September, compared with April, was his local one, South Yorkshire Police, where street crime had risen by 7 per cent.

The overall fall in street crime was largely due to successes in the Metropolitan and West Midlands areas, where the problem has been at its most acute.

The Met, which began its Operation Safer Streets in February, has seen a 33 per cent reduction in the number of robbery offences since the start of the year. Between April and September, the number of crimes was 25,026, a fall of 17 per cent from the same period the previous year. West Midlands Police limited the number of robberies to 5,254 in the same period, a fall of 16 per cent from the year before.

Mr Blunkett said the positive elements of the crime-fighting figures had to be recognised so that encourage-ment could be given to frontline police officers. "The statistics speak for themselves and I ask only that we give credit where credit is due," he said.

"The morale of those at the sharp end is very important in carrying forward a can-do attitude."

Among the measures introduced have been video-based ID parades, which allow victims to avoid being brought face to face with their alleged attackers. The system has meant parades that often took 10 weeks to organise can be set up within 24 hours. Truancy sweeps have led to 12,000 children being rounded up on the streets and 111 police officers have been stationed full-time in urban schools.