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5.2 A similar reduction in the crimes of dishonesty has been recorded by the Force. There were increases in all but one other Scottish Force, with percentage increases in some forces being as much as 12 and 14%. Crimes of indecency in the Force area increased by 6.3%.
5.3 The continuing drop in reported crime in the Force area is welcome. At 35% crime cleared up by the Force is currently the lowest in Scotland, and drops to 30% for crimes of dishonesty. Figure 7 below shows the percentage of crimes cleared up by all Scottish forces.
5.4 The total number of crimes and offences per 10,000 population for 1998 was 802, which is above the Scottish force average of 726. See Figure 8.
5.5 During the course of the inspection, concerns were raised by a number of officers about the reliability of some aspects of crime recording within the Force. Recent internal audits carried out by their Force Inspectorate and by senior detective officers had indicated that there was an under-recording of crime in some areas. As a result, a number of random checks at different stages of the recording process were carried out by HMIC and this revealed a number of inconsistencies. Incidents were identified from the Command and Control system where submission of a Crime Report might have been expected but could not be traced. A sample of cases submitted to the Procurator Fiscal was checked and in some instances it was found that no detection had been recorded and no Crime Report had been submitted. Such inaccuracies impact, not only on the Force's detection rate, but on the recorded crime figures for the Force generally.
5.6 The situation is exacerbated by a cumbersome recording process involving a number of unlinked systems. An incident recorded on the Command and Control system may be closed with the words "Crime Report to be submitted," but only occasionally will it show the Crime Report number allocated. To discover whether a Crime Report had been submitted required interrogation of the Crime Recording system. A way of checking whether a report had been submitted to the Procurator Fiscal was to check the accused's name on the Scottish Criminal Records Office computer to ascertain whether there was a case pending or a conviction of the relevant type recorded against that name. This latter check is unreliable as there could be no trace of a conviction because of an alternative disposal by the Courts. When an officer reports an accused, the Custody Recording system is used as the only means of generating a report to the Procurator Fiscal. There is nothing to prevent such a report being produced or indeed sent by e-mail to the Procurator Fiscal without a Crime Report also having been either submitted or amended to record a detection. One way to improve matters would be to build in a requirement for a Crime Report number to be logged in the Custody Recording system before an e-mail can be sent. A more effective measure would be the generation of a unique reference number for each Crime Report which can be followed through the entire case management process.
5.7 The only means of acquiring a Crime Report number is for an officer to record the crime through the Central Input Bureau where an operator inputs the crime and allocates a number. A 'prompt line' service was available under the old system where, if the Input Bureau was engaged, officers could leave details of the crime on a recording machine which issued them with a receipt number. The Crime Report number would then be allocated when an operator transferred the crime from the prompt line to the Crime Recording system. Use of the prompt line has been discontinued pending introduction of the new Crime Recording system.
5.8 While the new system will be an improvement on the old one in terms of search features and user friendliness and will be linked through a corporate database to custody, firearms, duty management and command and control, it is not designed to impact on the problems identified above.
5.9 The unwieldiness of the above process militates against an efficient crime reporting system. However there are other issues. There are insufficient checks in the system to confirm that incidents are being properly closed off on the Command and Control system and to ensure that Crime Reports are being submitted in respect of crimes which require one. The attention this dimension receives from first line supervisors appears variable but where sergeants do monitor the submission of reports by their officers there is less of a problem.
5.10 While supervision is an important factor in this situation there is also a need to address an approach to crime recording which still allows some reports from the public to be noted as "beat complaints" or "reported for information only." So long as the present unsatisfactory position continues, the level of confidence in the Force's criminal statistics remains open to question and to a degree undermines the good work which is taking place in respect of crime incidents and the detection of offenders.
HMIC recommends that the Force addresses the shortcomings in its crime recording practices and introduces a more robust system of checks to ensure confidence in its crime data.
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Recommendation 9 |
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HMIC recommends that the Force addresses the shortcomings in its crime recording practices and introduces a more robust system of checks to ensure confidence in its crime data. |
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