Lock It And Lose It Anyway

From Newsletter 3 (November 1995)

At a recent local consultation group meeting with the Cambridgeshire Police Authority, crime statistics were presented for the four month period up to the end of July 1995. They make quite alarming reading. These figures (I've included several other for comparison) are for the whole of Cambridgeshire:

Theft of Pedal Cycles	2515
Theft of Motor Vehicles	1870
Theft from Motor Vehicles	4198
Household Burglaries	1825

The cycle figure for the "Southern Division" (including the City) was 1242 (up slightly on the same period the previous year). Of these only 56 were "detected" (which is a 5% detection rate).

At the last meeting we felt that:

it was amazing that these high figures (for cycle theft, at least) were tolerated by the public
that there were maybe insufficient racks (it's really essential to make sure you lock you bike to something). However, there are already enough racks for around 1000 bikes in the City.
crime detection isn't as "pro-active" as we'd like.

One of the force's stated objectives for the coming year is to "work together with the community and agencies to tackle and prevent crimes that are a local problem". Consequently, we've written to the police asking them in what ways they plan to tackle this significant problem