Criminal Youth Culture in Highcliffe and the Police Response to it

"Last night at around 10.30 pm there were many youths, some could not be older than 13 or 14 walking through Highcliffe centre drinking cans of beer and kicking things as they went along! I have also noticed that outside lights in the Hinton Oak have been pulled out of the ground. Where are their parents??"

"As for the police, they are so short of manpower, the Highcliffe police station has not opened for months now, not even during the daytime hours they advertise. I don't think we've got much chance of a police presence at night do you?"

"I hear there was also a problem on Saturady night where kids put metal bollards across the road on the Christchurch by pass and caused a serious acdcident which could have easily have killed someone, when are the police going to start dealing with these."

"Cant you all just lighten up for christs sake!!!!! Nothing is happening!! i am 14 and go to highcliffe skool and all everyone does is just hang out! we dont break anything although the pavillion may of happened by accident! Why wont you just let us go down the beach in the evening and just have some fun! i mean just because you lot are 90 and cant do anything! let us enjoy are youth! is that too much to ASK!!!!!!!!"

"When are the police going to police Highcliffe properly at night??????? Yet again last night up to 10 youths were walking down Beacon Drive towards the Hinton Oak shouting, kicking fences and hitting street signs with some sort of metal poles!! It's no use calling the police as they don't respond! This cannot be allowed to continue, surely the police can act on this mindless vandalism and yobbish behaviour!",

"Last night at about 9:00 there were around 50-60 youths on the recreation ground, mostly all under age drinking and smashing the swings around and kicking the toilets. The council has spent thousands over the last few weeks re-decorating the toilets and repairing damage that has been caused in the past, by more then likely the same individuals.............. Well I decided on number three and called the police to be told that if there was an officer spare then they would send one, which after hanging around for 45 minutes and being called names etc, no policeman turned up, which does not surprise me or the youths as they know that the police will do nothing."

"Rob, we walked past the recreation ground last night and saw the same, we saw the youths throw the bottle at your dog and called the police as well three things we walked away in knowing.
1) Must take have to be a real man to kick the doors on a toilet or throw a bottle at a man and a dog.
2) Police around here is a waste of time, and the kids know that they can do what they like when they like.
3) How come so many parents can turn a blind eye or be so stupid that they donk know what there children are doing, from the way that they were acting it cant be hard to see what there 14/16 year is drunk."

"I have read through the various postings on your forum and welcome the chance to reply formally.

Christchurch Section of Dorset Police covers the entire borough of Christchurch which is one of the most densely populated towns in the South West of England. It has a population of nearly 45000 people and is swollen further by an average of 1 million visitors anually. Christchurch is also home to Bournemouth International Airport which has passenger numbers which are set to break through the 1 million mark this year.

I have available to me to police the area, 6 Sergeants, 32 Constables and 5 Police Community Support Officers (PCSO's) of these I have currently 8 Constables and 1 PCSO unavailable for operational duties due to being abstracted for other duties, e.g. training probationary constables, sickness and recuperative duties following injury. This leaves me 6 Sergeants, 24 Constables and 4 PCSO's. Take into account the fact that there are 5 shifts that they are divided between without considering annual leave, courses court appearances etc and you will quickly realise that the thin blue line is exactly that.

Over the last 12 months (1 October 2004-30 September 2005) Christchurch Police have responded to 11636 Incidents and Recorded 3127 Crimes. They have arrested 1160 people and detected 769 crimes.

The area is divided into 11 Beat areas which correspond to the local council wards. As the comments made on the website refer to Highcliffe I have looked closer into the 3 wards that are associated with Highcliffe, these being Highcliffe, West Highcliffe and North Highcliffe and Walkford. Over the same 12 month period, the 3 wards put together had a total incident count of 1744 which equates to 14% of the total for Christchurch and 466 Crimes recorded which equates to 15% of the total.

These figures suggest that Highcliffe, far from being a high crime area is in fact a low crime area, of what is already considered to be a low crime borough. The recently published 3rd Edition of "The State of Christchurch" document produced by Christchurch Borough Council contains statistics that demonstrate that residents living in Christchurch are 1.75 times less likely to be a victim of violence, 5 times less likely to be robbed, 1.5 times less likely to be burgled 2 times less likely to have their vehicle stolen and 1.5 times less likely to have it broken into than anywhere else in the South West. Clearly Christchurch is a safe low crime area to live in and Highcliffe is even safer.

However, things are not perfect and even though Christchurch Officers have dramatically increased the crime detection rate without any additional resources and seen a reduction in Anti Social Behaviour, we still have things to improve upon.

There will always be occasions when we are unable to provide the service that we would wish and which the public rightly expects. The incidents referred to which occurred on 7th October were logged by police and referred to Officer who were already in the area dealing with other issues. The PCSO who normally works in Highcliffe did move a group of youths on from the recreation ground and down onto the beach at around 9.00pm. I do not doubt that some of these youths later returned. However, it was a particularly busy Friday night (I know as I was working) there were 28 incidents recorded over a 6 hour period including Burglaries in progress and many other incidents of nuisance youths. Some times it is inevitable that some incidents are given a lower priority and consequently Police Officers arrive too late to make any difference. I will assure you that we are as frustrated by this as are the local residents but we sometimes literally have run out of officers to send to anything but the most dire emergencies.

I would like to offer up to you the opportunity of accompanying one of my officers on patrol on a Friday night as an observer and perhaps you would like to then write about your experience of the realities of policing Christchurch and Highcliffe.

I am aware that some residents are under the impression that your Highcliffe Community Beat Officer has been taken away for other duties. This is completely incorrect PC Carole Darkin continues to work in Highcliffe.

With regard to the Police Station at Highcliffe, it is open Monday to Saturday from 9.00am until 1.00pm. Outside of these hours there is coverage from Christchurch Police Station, which opens from 7.00 am to 11pm weekdays and to 1.00am on Friday and Saturday nights.

I hope this answers some of your questions, I am of course quite willing to attend community meetings and face questions as required as with the recent Highcliffe Residents Association meeting at St Marks Church Hall that was also attended by the Chief Constable.

I am proud of the policing that the hard working officers here at Christchurch are able to offer. We are not perfect but we do care!"

We accepted the kind offer for one of our team to join them on a Friday night and the next Special Report will detail their findings.