Where did 2 weeks go?

Since my last comments we have had the derby game Saints v Pompey, I took a week off over half term (including my first time to St James Park to watch Newcastle, 39,000 on a cold wednesday night, awesome!)and last week seemed to rush by with organisational and management stuff; important but not as rewarding as time spent with people. As always the last 2 weeks has had a real range of policing issues to deal with. However, most seem somehow less significant in the shadow of the awful events at Totton at the weekend. Whatever the reasons and the causes such an event is a terrible sadness for so many people. On a lesser scale, but still of importance to the people affected, we've had some successes arresting and charging people for a variety of crimes over the last 2 weeks including a nasty assualt at Millbrook which resulted in a group of suspected offenders being taken off the streets and remanded in custody and some other people caught for house burglaries. Such burglaries used to be much more common several years ago and over the last few years we have done really well at reducing them to all time lows. But this year we have seen an increase for the first time for a long time. Is this caused by the economic downturn? We know many of the people committing burglaries are doing so to find the money for drug habits, especially herione addiction. I wouldn't have thought these people would have seen their income etc. fall as most weren't working anyway but maybe it is something about the economy. I say the numbers are rising but if I point out that there are about 92,000 households in the City and we get about 2-3 dwelling burglaries a day then you can see what the real levels are and how well we have done to reduce these over the years. Dwelling burglaries will feature as a specific target for the new year starting in April. That's along with tackling anti-social behaviour, criminal damage, violent crime and some others. No suprises there. One newer target is about making people in the City more confident in their policing service. Reducing crime and anti-social behaviour adds to confidence but we need to do more on how we communciate and engage better with people in the City. Not spin or false promises; just more open with people and more responsive to what people need and want from us. Maybe we need to use social marketing and networking more!