Your local crime stats
Jan 31, 2011 at 23:01 
If you're of a nervous disposition, or prone to fretting, this may not be for you. On the other hand, it may be just the thing to put your mind at rest. The Government has decided that it would be a good thing for us all to know just how much crime is going on in our neighbourhoods. The idea behind this is that once we have some hard facts at our fingertips, rather than hysterical scare-mongering from the media, we will be better able to tell the police what we need and want from them. Hmmm.
The Home Secretary (Theresa May) says that this is just the start of greater transparency in crime, policing and justice and will allow people to hold their local forces to account.
"We want people to be able to see what crime is happening on their street and to be able to tell their local police if they have concerns, and challenge them about how issues are being dealt with. From today, this new information will allow them to do just that.
This is a major achievement, reconnecting the police and communities through the power of information. But this is just the start. We want to build on this by working with the police and communities to explore how we can go further and faster and drive forward even greater transparency across crime, policing and justice."
Anyway, if you're up to it, click over to www.police.uk where you can bash in your postcode and see the awful/unvarnished/encouraging truth, depending on where you live.
Reader Comments (1)
At our committee meetings, we discuss crime in the Town Centre with multiple agencies attending. Our normal meetings are not open to the public because of the nature of the items discussed but we will probably be holding an open meeting later in May 2011.
The statistics shown on the website are not news to us. We are aware of the problems that exist in the Town Centre but our major concern is some peoples' unreasonable fear of crime in our town. The reality is that most of Herne Bay, including the Town Centre, has low rates of crime except for some alcohol-fuelled anti-social behaviour and 'domestics'.
We do try to understand why crime happens, and what if anything we can do to reduce its incidence in the Town Centre, but what the agencies do sometimes has to stay confidential.
If you compare Herne Bay Town Centre's crime statistics with Central Canterbury, or Margate, or Ramsgate, you will see why our Police's priorities are elsewhere.