Widnes Citizens' Assembly

They were asked to take part in three face-to-face workshops, where they explored their views and expectations for local policing and crime in their area.

In addition to sharing their views on crime and policing, assembly members received information about the different types of local policing and the difficult decisions that have to be made when allocating police resources. This enabled the assemblies to have open and honest discussions.

Testimonials

“If I’d has access to an e-bike when I was fifteen, I would’ve been riding around on it too!”

“[Upon hearing the arguments for giving budget to forensics / CSI] I think that’s very hard to argue against, it’s such an important job.”

Initial priorities

During the first face-to-face workshop the assembly decided that the top local priorities for the area would be:

• More visible policing – perceptions were that the police were “invisible” and “inaccessible”. The participants wanted to see police patrolling the streets and engaging with the local community to understand their needs.
• Cracking down on low-level crime (e.g. anti-social behaviour, theft and drugs – such as drug-dealing, e-bikes and anti-social behaviour, as the perception is that the problems are hyper-local and are common in communities.
• Consequences for young people – participants felt that young people were usually the ones responsible for committing crimes. Tougher consequences were needed to deter them.
• Closing the feedback loop – by keeping the public more up to date about local policing and what’s going on behind the scenes, helping to build public confidence and satisfaction.

The journey

Learning more about the nature of crime and policing helped assembly members develop a deeper understanding of the challenges facing the police.

During the Widnes citizens’ assembly, the participants explore topics that hadn’t first ‘sprung to mind’ and gained a better understand about what the police were doing that the public don’t see.

The participants appreciated that ‘hidden’ crimes such as domestic abuse and county lines crimes were important to the police, but this shouldn’t mean that communities lose their ‘local bobby’ on the beat.

“Hard one because do you want to invest for the future to have a police force able to tackle things like cybercrime, or do you fund the things you need now? And if you’ve got a sudden crime wave you need the funds to tackle that crime.”

“What stood out at our table was just that we were quite shocked and disgusted, we were not aware of the scale of the issue [of domestic abuse in the area].”

Final priorities

During the third and final assembly, the participants settled on the below top three local priorities for the local policing unit (LPU):

• Prevention and education – to focus on long-term solutions to local crimes
• Tackling domestic abuse – with a focus on bringing down the rate of one of the most prevalent crimes in the local policing area. Halton is the second highest area in the country with 46% of crimes reported as domestic abuse.

  “I don’t know why the rate is so high. I guess it’s a combination of things, I think there has been very low funding for domestic abuse services in the area.”

• Police visibility – to ensure residents feel safe on the streets and to build community relationships.