South Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner
Newsletter
Autumn 2018
You may have missed the little speech one of our MEPs, Richard Corbett, gave during the ceremony in Brussels at which a square was named after Jo Cox, the murdered MP.
I thought I would include it in our newsletter in part to remember Jo, but also to remind us that terrorist acts can come from any quarter and we all need to be vigilant even as we seek to build that better society which Jo advocated so eloquently.
"Monsieur le Bourgemestre, Monsieur L”Echevin, Chers Amis,
All of us were very touched when we heard of the decision of the City of Brussels to name this square after Jo Cox. The gesture will live on for many years, reminding us of the values she stood for, and of her time in Brussels, in the European Parliament.
Many of us remember how enthusiastic and lively she was, and the commitment she gave to everything she did. It was a privilege to work in the vicinity of her, let alone closely with her.
I think for many of us, not just in our political family, but of course, especially in our political family, our hearts were torn apart when we heard the terrible news that day, just a few days before we voted in that terrible referendum in which she was campaigning to remain part of our European Union.
But we must take courage. We must live up to the values that she stood for, live up to the principles that she lived by. We must fight on for the politics that we believe in, which will make our society a better place. We must create a better world, where people all take to their hearts the words of Jo that are so widely remembered, “we have more in common than that which divides us.
Mijneer de Burgermeester, Dank U voor dit gelegenheid om het leven van Jo te vieren en een paar woorden te zeggen over dit opmekelijke jonge vrouw die zo tragisch voor ons verloren is.”
The South Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner’s campaign to engage with young people is back in schools this month.
YOYO - which stands for You’re Only Young Once - is an early intervention programme delivered in classrooms across secondary schools in South Yorkshire. Aimed at year nine students, YOYO offers pupils the opportunity to learn how to produce podcasts, radio advertisements and videos on important issues such as violent crime and child sexual exploitation.
During phase two of the programme YOYO will visit six schools across Barnlsey, Doncaster and Sheffield. Rotherham received workshops as part of phase one when Brinsworth Academy and Wales High Schools produced audios on guns, gangs and knives and child sexual exploitation that were aired as awareness raising radio advertisements on Hallam FM as part of the campaign.
The South Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner Dr Alan Billings funds three grant schemes across South Yorkshire.
The community grant scheme, administered by the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner, provide grants of up to £5,000 to voluntary or non-profit organisations that provide help and support to those in need and fall within the Commissioner’s priorities of protecting vulnerable people, reducing crime and anti-social behaviour and treating people fairly.
Funding from the scheme has already provided funding to Mexborough Miners Welfare for sports coaches and youth workers to deliver activities throughout the summer school break.
Yorkshire and the Humber is the first region in the country to procure its own floating colposcope to be available to victims of sexual abuse in the region’s Sexual Assault Referral Centres (SARCs).
A colposcope is used in forensic examinations after a sexual assault to identify and photograph internal injuries to the victim. This evidence can be used in court proceedings.
Funded by the four regional Police and Crime Commissioners – South, West and North Yorkshire and Humberside - and NHS England, the colposcope can be made available to any of the region’s referral centres at very short notice as the equipment can be used whenever and wherever.
The equipment was purchased as an additional aide for the regional sexual assault referral service that was launched in 2016. The service saw the opening of four regional SARC buildings in each of the counties for forensic examination and to support and give advice to victims.
We would like to hear from you if you have been a victim of crime in the last 12 months.
Gathering the views of people who have been victims of crime will help us to identify which support services are working well and where you think more support may be required.
Sharing your experiences will help to ensure that victims needs are kept at the heart of the Criminal Justice System.
While I was out with the Operation Shield team in Gleadless, some of the force’s horses appeared.
They are now back in their stables in South Yorkshire at ring Farm, Cudworth. The staff are currently housed at Cudworth police station until the farmhouse at ring Farm is refurbished.
The two horses in the photograph are Brinsworth and Eastwood. The horses are all named after different places in South Yorkshire.
South Yorkshire Police will escalate their drive against burglars and serious acquisitive crime with the launch of Operation Shield.
Operation Shield, funded by the Community Safety Partnerships and the Police and Crime Commissioner, is a highly targeted initiative which focuses on the areas most affected by serious acquisitive crime (the crimes committed to fund the use of drugs).
Officers from South Yorkshire Police, South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service, Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council and Sheffield City Council will visit 8000 homes in key areas including Gleadless in Sheffield and Mexborough and Hexthorpe in Doncaster to deliver Smartwater.
South Yorkshire safety teams have joined forces, in an ambitious fire and police collaboration project.
The joint community safety department brings together staff from South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue and South Yorkshire Police to work together with the shared aim of keeping people safe.
The leadership within each service believe the joint department will make both organisations’ work to prevent emergencies and reduce demand more efficient and effective.
High profile activities the teams currently undertake include home safety checks, crime prevention visits and youth engagement activities such as the award-winning Princes Trust Team Programme, which has helped to transform the lives of more than 200 young people in two years.
Dr Alan Billings, South Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner said: “This is a very worrying report because it reveals that the government is in denial about the impact cuts in the funding of policing is having on the service.
“The government's formula for funding police forces is deeply flawed.
“The government is trying to shift the burden of paying for police from central government to the council tax payer. But this is resulting in poorer areas of the country, where there are higher levels of crime, such as South Yorkshire, coming out worse than the wealthy counties such as Surrey where crime is lower.
The government has decided to end the contracts with the private companies that manage medium and low risk offenders in the community two years early at a cost of £170m.
The contracts with the 21 Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) were due to run until 2022, but will now be ended in 2020. Many CRCs, which operate on a payment by results basis, have made substantial losses. The proposal is they will be replaced by ten new contracts.
Dr Alan Billings South Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner said:
“I welcome the fact that the Home Secretary sees the scale of child sexual abuse on-line and the need for additional resources to tackle it.“As well as trying to prevent abusive images on the internet, we also need to recognise that the grooming of children for sexual purposes has also moved to the internet.
