The body which represents rank and file officers in North Yorkshire has criticised the findings of a report issued by HMIC into crime recording by 13 police forces, including North Yorkshire Police
An inspection concluded that officers in North Yorkshire recorded only 56 crimes when they should have recorded 64.
Mike Stubbs, Chair Elect of the county’s Police Federation said: Either of those figures represent just over half the number of crimes that police officers in North Yorkshire can expect to record each and every day. It is difficult to see quite how any meaningful conclusions can be drawn from such limited data. Previous more detailed inspections have concluded that crime recording practices in North Yorkshire are ethical. But it was the emerging themes identified in the report which caused the greatest concern for the Federation. Comments in the report attribute alleged failings to ‘poor knowledge of the rules and inadequate or absent training in their content’ and ‘poor supervision or management’. The report asserts that ‘it is difficult to conclude that none of these failures was the result of discreditable or unethical behaviour’ but the Federation point out that the report offers no evidence whatsoever to support this assertion.
Referring to the Home Office Counting Rules (HOCR) and National Crime Recording Standards (NCRS) the report claims they provide ‘a clear and simple framework’ and ‘are not especially complicated’, and that ‘every police officer should be able to understand and apply them.
Sgt Stubbs said The implied criticism that police officers are either badly trained, badly managed, corrupt or just a bit too dim to properly apply the HOCR and NCRS is grossly unfair and insulting to our members. It completely ignores the bureaucratic minefield which surrounds crime recording. The HOCR and NCRS documents referred to are available on the gov.uk website. In total they amount to more than 1000 pages. That anyone can regard those documents as ‘a clear and simple framework’ which is ‘not especially complicated’ beggars belief.
