Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
237 - 256)
DEPUTY ASSISTANT
COMMISSIONER ROD
JARMAN
2 FEBRUARY 2010
Q237 Chairman: Deputy Assistant Commissioner
Jarman, thank you very much for coming to give evidence this morning.
This is an inquiry into crime prevention, how the Government has
done in preventing crime rather than dealing with crime, and of
course the mantle of greatness is given to those who win wars
not to those who prevent wars. I want to know, to start with,
how much of a priority for the police is crime prevention, as
opposed to dealing with crime after it has occurred.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Jarman:
If you go right back to Lord Peel and the beginning of policing
in London and across the country, the focus has always been discussed
as preventing crime being the primary object, and detecting crime
when it has occurred being the secondary object of policing. An
awful lot of what we do is around preventing crime. The last few
years have seen a movement away from detection being the primary
issue for policing into reducing the levels of victimisation and
the levels of criminality, and that has worked through and such
programmes as the local area agreements and the PSAs have moved
the focus away from just what do we do when a crime has happened
into how we work in partnerships to reduce crimes happening in
the first place. In terms of a direction of travel, it is definitely
where we have been going and definitely what we are focusing on.
However, we are the part of the partnership, if you like, the
part of the structure which is responsible for enforcement activity,
and therefore a very large part of our role is about catching
and putting before the courts those people who commit crime. It
is part of the agenda to reduce crime and it would be wrong for
us to not keep that focus.
Q238 Chairman: There was an article
in The Times this week about the Scilly Isles. You may
have seen it. It said that this is the most wonderful place to
live in the United Kingdom because there is virtually no crime—I
think six crimes had been committed last year. This is the ideal,
the nirvana in which everyone would like to live. We are not going
to get to that position, are we, in the United Kingdom because
crime is going to be committed? Our concern in this Committee
is the emphasis that is given as far as crime prevention is concerned.
We know, for example, how much of a policeman's time is spent
on bureaucracy. We are given these figures. Jan Berry has recently
given these figures as well. If you take the average police constable,
how much of that police constable's time would be spent on doing
crime prevention work as opposed to trying to reach targets, filling
in forms, that kind of thing?
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Jarman:
You need to have a model of what you mean by crime prevention.
From my specific position, there are a number of strands within
that. Some are giving straightforward advice and assisting with
the design of issues to prevent crime happening. The neighbourhood
policing agenda is all around increasing confidence and reducing
the fear of crime. There is an awful lot of research which shows
that where you increase confidence and reduce fear, people comply
more and commit less crime, so there is a direct crossover. In
London, specifically, the growth of neighbourhood policing has
led to a reduction in crime in the areas where it has been brought
in. There are other models around youth crime, about intervention
with young people to prevent them becoming offenders. Then there
are models around social interactions with other people.
Q239 Chairman: A lot of what you
have described are duties that could well be conducted by PCSOs
going around to a person's house and advising them, "You
need a burglar alarm" or "Are the windows secure?"
et cetera. Giving a house a crime audit is something that can
be done by someone who is not a police officer. You do not have
to be a police officer to do this, but those are the structures
that have been created over the last 12 years. We know how much
time a police officer spends on bureaucracy. We know that. We
know how much time they spend on the beat. We do not seem to know
how much time is spent on crime prevention.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Jarman:
If you take all those things I have described and then add onto
that the arresting and detaining of offenders as being about preventing
them from committing further crimes, almost all police activity—and
I include in that all other parts of the organisation as well
as police officers, so PCSOs and police staff—when it is
not doing things like bureaucracy or when we are not hanging around
for other things that we get involved with, is focused on preventing
crime. My position would be that, once you take the bureaucracy
out, almost everything is around preventing crime. If you want
to look at how much time we spend on crime prevention advice,
I do not have that measure—although, as an organisation,
the Metropolitan Police would be able to provide it. Other forces
may not be able to provide it.
Q240 Chairman: Do you have crime
prevention officers in the Met? How many deal just with crime
prevention?
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Jarman:
We have 96 crime prevention design analysts. We have 4,600 people
within the neighbourhood policing teams who have had training
to give advice around crime prevention. Then we have a very small
number, a residue number, of about 20 specific crime prevention
officers. There are reasons for the difference. For instance,
you talked about alarms just now. For us to give professional
advice around alarm systems and which ones would work in particular
areas, the person giving that advice has to have a level of competence
which is above normal. The vast majority of advice that we give
is really about British Standard locks, shutting windows and doors,
and those sorts of things.
Q241 Chairman: There is no doubt
in your mind that if somebody has a burglar alarm on their house
it acts as a deterrent.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Jarman:
Absolutely no doubt in my mind, but there are a number of other
things which act as a deterrent as well: the way that buildings
are open to give natural surveillance; the way they are designed
to prevent through-flow of people. For instance, cul-de-sacs are
far less likely to be subject to crime than through roads. Private
roads are less subject to crime. Where there is access from the
rear of a property, that increases the risk of crime. There is
a whole range of things which you can do, burglar alarms being
definitely one. The previous evidence talked about advice. One
of the key issues is that most crime happens opportunistically,
and most crime happens because people have not shut doors/ have
not locked windows.
Q242 Chairman: Something very basic.
You are a distinguished police officer; you have been around for
a long time. Our discussions are also focused on the causes of
crime. If you had to pick off the top of your head the top three
causes of crime, what would they be?
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Jarman:
If I start with violent crime: specifically over the last couple
of years, we have seen a massive rise in the number of young people
being involved in murder and being the victims of murder, and
then getting back in control of that, if you like. The whole issues
around violent crime are how people grow up from a very early
age. There is a whole issue around the involvement of the health
services and social services with very young people, neglect within
families, support within young families. There is a whole series
of issues around how safe young people are in primary, junior
and secondary schools, how safe they feel, how supportive they
are, and then there is a whole set of issues around where do they
turn to for peer support. Do they turn to something constructive
and positive, or do they turn to a group of people who are getting
them involved in a sort of gang type network? That is the sort
of framework. Around violence, it is that whole issue around the
interconnectedness of all of the bits of the state and family
that support people growing up. If you look at acquisitive crime,
many of the same things apply. An awful lot of acquisitive crime
is committed by young people. That is not to say all young people;
in fact the minority of young people commit crime, but when you
look at the peak offending age being 21, it is in that ten to
21 year age range that the majority of acquisitive crime is committed.
The issues there are two-fold. One is around how to intervene
in young people's lives, to deal with those who are going to commit
one crime as they are growing up. They need a short, sharp shock
of some description, part of which could just be being arrested
and being addressed. The other part is about what are their family
ties and connections, to prevent them going off the rails further.
I suppose the third thing which we really ought to be focusing
on is how we design buildings, premises and locations to reduce
the likelihood of crime happening. You mentioned a little earlier
whether there is any evidence of this working. Secure by Design
is situational crime prevention. There is a lot of evidence showing
that those places where those principles are being used are up
to 60% less likely to have crime committed in them than those
that are not. That whole thought about how we design new things
is one of the issues that I think we ought to get a grip on.
Chairman: Thank you.
Q243 Gwyn Prosser: You have just
told us about some of the agencies and initiatives in place which,
with correct intervention, should reduce crime amongst young people.
There are a lot of others, of course, including Sure Start and
Children Centres and intervention with families. With all that
going on, to what extent do police officers feel that all they
can do is plug the gaps in those areas? You also talked about
interconnectivity. Do you feel that there is the correct level
of co-ordination between all the agencies, all trying to do the
same thing? How could it be improved?
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Jarman:
There are probably three levels to think about how we provide
services in this area, if you want to use that terminology. The
bits where I think we are well connected and where we work really
well together is about the targeted provision of services to those
people who are committing crime, who are already into that cycle.
Most of those now, through youth offending teams, through youth
projects, through the various arrangements, are well co-ordinated.
At the very high level, for those people who are probably going
into prison, who are having detention orders, I think it is well
organised. The area where it becomes quite difficult for people
to understand is at the sort of universal, provision-to-everybody
type area. How do we all work together to assist all young people
growing up?—if I may put it in that generic way. The police
role quite often has been to fill the void in youth provision
out-of-hours. We will have provision during schooling hours and
quite often provision mid-week during the evenings, but on Friday
and Saturday nights we have seen a lack of provision and young
people hanging around on street corners, getting into trouble
and creating that sort of emphasis for police intervention. That
is the bit where, historically, and still at the moment, we have
not been as tied up as we could be. I think the police have a
real definite role in being the front end of joint services around
those types of people, because we are the ones out on the streets
in uniform identifying them, but I do not think we are always
as capable as we need to be to intervene appropriately with them.
Q244 Gwyn Prosser: We have all heard
stories from people of my age looking back at the time of their
youth. If a policeman, a copper, came along the road, there was
due deference and respect, et cetera, and just a few words would
be enough to send you scampering. Today we hear stories from community
support officers of some real-life attitudes, where young youths
are being cheeky, at best, and insulting and abusive, at worst,
without any sort of recourse taking place. What has happened in
the meantime? I know it is a big question, but what is your view
and with all your experience?
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Jarman:
I am still reeling at the Chairman's comment that I have been
around a lot, so perhaps I am not the best person to comment on
that. I think there is a very significant problem for young people
in their interactions with the police. Many of the sorts of structures
around society generate an environment where young people think
they should challenge where they can push boundaries, where they
can be cheeky, if you like. Without check, that being cheeky can
lead into antisocial behaviour and then into violence. When they
meet police officers and PCSOs, that is often the first time when
they will meet someone who has to draw a line and say, "This
cannot happen."
Q245 Gwyn Prosser: Because the line
has not been drawn at home perhaps.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Jarman:
Because I do not think the line is drawn enough in other places.
That often puts us into a position of confrontation—and
it is quite right, that is what we are here for, but that confrontation
is exacerbated by the fact that the young people do not believe
that the line has been drawn, and so a lot of our work is dealing
with setting that boundary and enforcing that boundary and making
it real, when other people, for a number of reasons, have not
done that.
Gwyn Prosser: Thank you.
Chairman: Thank you, Mr Prosser. I cannot
imagine you scampering away from anybody, including police officers.
Q246 Mr Winnick: Mr Jarman, the Metropolitan
Police Commissioner has requested or instructed—whichever
is the appropriate word—police officers to go round singly
in patrols. This has apparently caused some concern, although
the point has been made by the Commissioner that, where clearly
it would be inadvisable for there to be just one police officer,
that will not occur. Can you let us in on what is the current
situation?
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Jarman:
Single patrol is the default position for patrol in the Metropolitan
Police Service. All patrols should start with an officer working
on their own. There are two strong principles behind that. The
first is that a risk assessment has to take place beforehand to
make sure it is appropriate for officers to work on their own.
Can they achieve their aims if they are on their own? Do they
have the ability to patrol singly? The second is where they are
in their training cycle, so a number of officers do not have independent
patrol status because of the way we train at the moment, so they
have to patrol with somebody else. When I joined the organisation—which
was over 30 years ago—single patrol was the way we did business.
Somewhere between 30 years ago and about two years ago, we had
drifted into a way of working which meant that officers were always
in pairs. For the vast majority of activity, the officers do not
need to be in pairs. They can complete their tasks on their own.
When we have surveyed—we have done borough by borough reviews
of their frameworks around patrol—most boroughs have said
the same thing, that, apart from a small number officers who are
responding to emergency calls and officers who are working at
particular times of day and in particular locations, almost everybody
can patrol on their own. That is where we are moving to at the
moment. We are having to rethink how we train people, because
we have trained them for working in pairs. We are thinking about
how they give evidence at court, because, again, they have got
used to there being two of them. All of those things are things
which we can overcome. We want our officers out on the streets,
engaging with the public, talking to the public, making sure that
they have that interaction which leads to good intelligence, and
making sure that people understand that they can walk confidently
and safely on the streets.
Q247 Mr Winnick: The report I saw
indicated that there was a feeling that, apart from anything else,
if two police officers are together they will inevitably be in
conversation, and there will be a greater reluctance on the part
of the public to come and speak to them if there is a problem.
Is there any sort of substance in that?
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Jarman:
That seems to make sense to all of us who do this activity: if
you are with somebody else, you will talk to that person and there
is a barrier to overcome. The substance is probably academically
not sound. It is just what we believe to be appropriate. We do
know from talking to the public that the public feel safer in
areas where they see more officers on patrol on their own. There
could be a whole number of reasons behind that—probably
because they are seeing more officers, but also because of the
interaction.
Q248 Mr Winnick: My constituency
is not in a Metropolitan area, it is in the West Midlands, and
I can assure you—and I would be surprised if the view of
any of my parliamentary colleagues differed—that my constituents
are reassured when they see police officers. Their only complaint
is that they want to see them more often and more frequently—but
that will not come as any surprise to you. As far as Friday and
Saturday night activities are concerned, has there been any marked
reduction in youth offending since the introduction of, as you
know, Mr Jarman, targeted provision for those two nights? Have
you or your colleagues noticed any reduction?
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Jarman:
There is a whole range of things that have happened in the last
two years. The Youth Crime Action Plan brought in some targeted
provision on Friday and Saturday nights. It also brought in Operation
Staysafe. It brought a focus on delivering services at the time
that they were needed in the high crime areas. Our indications
are that, in those areas where additional funds have been made
available and, in particular, an additional focus has been made,
there has been a decrease in the amount of antisocial behaviour
and violence. I think, though, that there are so many complex
things happening at the same time that it would be wrong to draw
a conclusion that it was just that one element that made a difference.
That is a really important element, but we also know that things
like the provision of Kicks, a football engagement programme in
high crime areas at the time when crime happens, having something
which engages young people and takes them off the street and gets
them doing something positive, makes a difference on crime. We
know also that, where we have police officers working closely
with young people on problem-solving, on the things that are causing
problems and leading to crime, that has reduced crime in those
areas. There are a number of different models which have all been
brought in at the same time, unfortunately, so to unpick and say,
"That's the one that made the difference," is really
difficult, but our indication would be that it makes sense that
that has happened and it has happened and led to reductions in
crime.
Mr Winnick: Thank you very much.
Q249 Martin Salter: Mr Jarman, I
am concerned about generational crime. I have stood in playgrounds
in some parts of my constituency with the then area commander,
who has pointed out to me kids whose fathers' grandfathers he
has arrested and dealt with, where subsequent conversations with
the teachers show already that generational pattern of behaviour
continuing. How do we break that cycle?
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Jarman:
There is a huge amount of evidence about this, about the fact
that the way that your family and your peers behave will affect
the way that you behave. I do not know why we need a lot of evidence
to drive that out, but we do have that. There are a number of
things that have to happen. First off, not everybody who grows
up in those families gets involved in crime. A big chunk of people
who live in a family where they have had that generation will
make the choice to go on a different path. The sorts of things
that make a choice are where they are given options of things
that provide them with, if you like, an alternative family. I
am thinking of things like the Scouts, the Guides, the Military
Cadets, those sorts of long-term engagements with young people
that give them an alternate view to that coming from the family.
That works. Working with the whole family programme at the moment
is an interesting concept. It seems hugely expensive, this new
plan, where in some places we seem to have an awful lot of people
working with a family, almost man-to-man marking, if you like,
and an independent worker coming in. I am not quite sure how that
will work when they pull that independent worker out from the
family. I think it is really important to look at the interfamily
dynamics and how you work with them. Also, we just have to deal
with those people who are committing crime and setting the standard.
Where a parent is committing crime and setting the basis, we need
to be seen to be taking that person before the courts and showing
young people that there is not a gain from it. There is that mixture
of things. I also think the whole concept of taking some young
people away from their families, whether it is fostering or whether
it is putting them into care, is something that we ought to be
considering. One of the problems is that the outcomes for young
people in care are so poor at the moment that that is not really
a viable alternative, but if we could get that outcome different
for that option, that would be a really important one in some
cases.
Q250 Martin Salter: We are working
in Reading at the moment on a range of youth adventure projects.
My colleagues will laugh when I say that I am a keen fishermen,
but some of the projects started life in Durham with the police,
getting kids hooked on fishing. There is one in Wraysbury with
Les Webber, you may be aware of: Get Hooked on Fishing Not Drugs
or Crime. They have had some remarkable outputs and some remarkable
results in terms of diverting young people. Is that to do with
the fact that, whether it is football, whether it is sending kids
away on summer camp, whether it is fishing, it is an activity
that takes a huge lump of time and therefore becomes, if you like,
an alternative value structure and an alternative family for a
significant chunk of the week when that child would otherwise
possibly be drifting into patterns of criminality? Is it about
occupying them in a pretty intensive way?
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Jarman:
It is probably a number of things. One of them is getting them
into a process over a long period of time where they are engaged
with other people who set a series of values and expectations
for them and enforce them.
Q251 Martin Salter: Those can be
different values from those they might receive at home.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Jarman:
From what is at home. The importance of sport or the arts or some
activity is that that is what hooks young people—if you
will pardon me sticking with hooking and fishing—into that
behaviour in the first place, and once they are in there, that
is the element that gets the slightly different dynamic. I also
think these sorts of activities change aspirations for young people.
When I was a borough commander in Southwark we surveyed lots of
young people on what would make a difference to their lives. I
remember one young boy who came to me afterwards and said, "The
thing I would really like to do is to go fishing, but I haven't
got a rod, I don't know where there is a river, and I don't know
how to fish, so that's the end of that idea." That whole
concept of generations of young people who may not have the aspiration
to try these things unless somebody else sets up a programme which
says "Come and have a go and get involved," is really
important. Once you have changed the aspirations, they have got
something to work for; whereas if they do not believe they can
achieve anything, why would they buy into an education system,
why would they buy into the state?
Martin Salter: The answer, of course,
is the River Wandle, and the charity is Thames21, which does a
lot of work in South London. But I am sure you know that. Thank
you, Chairman.
Chairman: As we keep explaining to Mr
Salter, we cannot all move to Reading—which seems to be
the centre of all good things at the moment, thanks to his hard
work.
Q252 Mrs Dean: To what extent have
ASBOs been a successful tool in preventing more serious offending?
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Jarman:
If you just took ASBOs on their own, I would probably not be supportive
of them as a tool. But I think they are a really important part
of a range of different interventions. There is a project in Cumbria
where they have almost stopped using ASBOs and it has all moved
into interventions, what we call ABCs, which are contracts with
young people, letters engaging the family in trying to divert.
The point about an ASBO is that it should be part of a long-term
engagement with somebody and if the other approaches do not work
then the anti-social behaviour order should be the way of intervening.
For some other people, in some communities—and you would
think about the neighbours-from-hell type element—we need
to control people. We may not have the time for that long-term
engagement and an ASBO is a very useful tool in those situations.
They are very limited. In some cases, post-conviction, I really
think the ASBOs are very useful because they maintain an ongoing
"You must comply with what the order is." My overall
position would be that this needs to be part of a much wider strategy
and not just one thing that you put in. When we do that, all we
are doing is effectively criminalising young people, because they
will breach the ASBO. If you do not put anything around them,
that does not make any difference. It is no different from PC
Smith saying, "Don't do that again." All they have is
a piece of paper that says, "Don't do that again." It
has to be wider than just the ASBO.
Q253 Mr Streeter: What is your experience
of intervening with at-risk children over the 30 years that you
have been a police officer? Do you think the current policy procedures
are getting this right? If they are being removed to a place of
safety, what then for the life chances of those children? What
have you observed?
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Jarman:
The terrible outcomes of cases such as Victoria Climbié
have quite properly focused us on the very serious end of child
protection and have brought most of the joint agency working,
looking at how do we protect young people from serious abuse and
sexual abuse. One of the downsides of that is our focus on neglect
and those young people who are at risk of a different type of
failure. The Every Child Matters Agenda, the whole concept of
looking at outcomes, is a very good concept. That is exactly what
we should be doing. I know operationally children's services would
say one of the problems from that is that they are getting far
too many cases referred to them for them to be able to intervene.
Overall in London, we went from making about 300 referrals a week
to about 6,000 referrals a week as we moved into Every Child Matters.
We have put new systems in to say that these are the high risk
and these are the different levels, but for children's services
to be able to deal with that volume on that sudden change I do
not really think gave them a chance, and it has probably created
a number of other issues as a result. When we were looking at
what lay behind the murder of Damilola Taylor, we looked into
the lives of some young people who were offending in Southwark
in a lot of detail. One of the things that became clear to us
was that, once young people started to become the victim of offending,
whether it was within the house, where it was neglect, or whether
it was outside, it led very often into a pattern that they could
not get out of and they started offending as part of their response
to it. We noticed with a number of people who were actually moved,
either by their families or by the local authority away from the
locality where that was happening, that their outcomes were significantly
better. So I think there is some evidence that it is a really
useful way of intervening; it is just that the problem, as I said
before, is that the outcomes for care are not as good as they
need to be.
Q254 Mr Streeter: Have you come across
anything in your experience to date which can turn a poor parent,
a neglectful parent into a positive parent?
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Jarman:
I think again quite often we have large numbers of very young
people trying to struggle with bringing up other young people
and there are several initiatives across the country where there
is support for young mothers particularly—because these
initiatives tend to be focused on single parent families—and
supporting them in helping them get their lives out of chaos makes
a significant difference to the children and how the family grows
up.
Q255 Chairman: You clearly give the
Government ten out of ten as far as dealing with the consequences
of crime because crime figures have gone down, the Government
tells us. How many marks would you give them out of ten for dealing
with the causes of crime?
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Jarman:
I would go back to the ten out of ten—probably I would only
give them eight out of ten anyway! Crime has come down but I think
we could always do a lot better than we have done at the moment.
There is a lot more that we could address on that.
Q256 Chairman: So eight out of ten
for dealing with crime. The causes of crime?
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Jarman:
I think we have seen over the past few years a significant change
in emphasis into the causes of crime and how we deal with them.
I think that the ability for me to sit here and talk to you about
young family intervention and understanding how young people growing
up leads to crime has only come because the agenda in the public
sector is about how do we work together, from pre-birth until
adulthood, on reducing the criminal aspects that might affect
young people. So I think there has been a massive change in the
way that we work—a massive positive change. I do not want
to give them a mark at all actually because I realise I have got
myself into trouble with the eight out of ten. The point for me
is not an issue of have we dealt with this—we clearly have
not dealt with it. We are in a very complex society with lots
of different pressures, both on individuals and on the community
as a whole, which lead to the crime and the criminality; and we
are in a community that is constantly changing. If you come into
the major cities across the UK the churn of people within communities
is phenomenal, as you will all know, and that churn leads to specific
problems about preventing crime for the future. You cannot work
with people over the long term when they are constantly moving
and where you have constant influxes of people so that you keep
on having to go back and deal with an issue with which you were
dealing before. So in answer to your question, we have gone into
a really interesting new place on dealing with those sorts of
causes but we are probably not there yet. I think it is not just
about right back in the beginning of people's offending, I think
there is a bit the other way which is where we have identified
people. We are just beginning to get an idea of how effective
non-custodial sentences can be if we are more robust in making
sure that people actually complete the non-custodial sentence,
and that if we work on trying to prevent them committing crime
again. So I think that dealing with the causes needs to go backwards
but also needs to go into when someone has committed a crime how
do we make sure that they have paid the punishment for what they
have done and they do not commit further offences in the future;
and the whole concept of integrated offender management, the Diamond
Initiative in London is really useful for that.
Chairman: Deputy Assistant Commissioner,
thank you very much for giving evidence today.
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