Nottinghamshire Police puts customers at the centre of the service – case study

The Nottinghamshire Police control rooms were highly commended at the 2009 CCF European Call Centre Awards for improvements undertaken since April 2007. The only public sector organisation in their category to be shortlisted, key improvements included the streamlining of the crime recording process through the Crime Wizard module from criminal intelligence IT specialist, ABM.

Acting Inspector Rob Gilchrist, who worked at the forefront of the project, explains: “Prior to April 2007, callers complained that they were unable to get through quickly to report incidents and ultimately service delivery was not meeting customers’ expectations and the organisations requirements. Furthermore, the existing system was a heavy drain on police time and resources. Incident details were first recorded on Command and Control. Crime desk officers would then re-key the information into the system before ringing victims back with a crime number.

“Twelve percent of all incidents recorded were crimes that didn’t warrant an initial officer response and therefore weren’t allocated a crime number straight away. For incidents where an officer did attend, crime numbers were given at the time of the visit. The double keying of incident details led to inefficient use of police time both in the call centre and on the front-line. The resulting delays also resulted in frustration for the caller who had to wait for a second call to get a crime number.”

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Utah Meth Cops Project: Open Letter from Attorney-General Mark Shurtleff

Utah leads the nation in reducing the number of dangerous methamphetamine labs over the last seven years but that success came at a heavy price. Many of the police officers, who voluntarily went into these toxic homes to make Utah safer, are suffering ill effects from the harmful chemicals they encountered in those labs. Having witnessed myself the heroic attitude of our police officers, I felt that we could not stand by as a community while those who are willing to put their lives on the line to protect us were becoming ill. I decided that something needed to be done.

In the fall of 2007, I helped launch the Utah Meth Cops Project, the first detoxification program of its kind to help first responders exposed to illicit drug labs. The Utah Meth Cops Project uses the Hubbard™ sauna detoxification method, the same protocol used by the Ground Zero Rescue Workers Detoxification Project. The New York project has been around since 2002 and has successfully helped around 1,000 Ground Zero workers. Very early in the delivery of the project, the physician and staff noticed that police officers who had been exposed to meth were suffering from a cluster of symptoms not seen to such a dramatic extent in "non-meth cops" and the civilian population. Those symptoms include frequent headaches, severe acid reflux and esophageal problems, joint pain, insomnia, depression and others.

I am very proud to announce that in July of 2009, the Utah Meth Cops Project celebrated its 57th completion. The success of this program has been no less than impressive. We have seen a significant reduction of symptoms and a remarkable improvement in overall health and well being. Many of the officers’ testimonials have been posted under the success section of this website. I hope that you will take a minute to read them. We still have a long list of officers who need help and we also have a list of firefighters who have been exposed to the same meth labs. They too need our help. Due to the financial circumstances of these brave officers and firefighters, made worse by ill health, we have committed to make this program available to them free of charge.

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This is a republishing of a post from the blog of a good friend of mine who is a canny observer of all things intelligence. The blog is called Travels with Shiloh.

"Last week, while listening to my Radio Sweden podcast, I heard this story about something called the ‘Alcatraz List’. It seems it is a list developed by Swedish law enforcement of the ‘most dangerous’ criminals in the country and there are concerns that it might not have been worth the expense to create it given that only half of the people on the list have received any jail time in the three years the list has been in existence. The story was pretty sparse on details so there wasn’t much to say. I did a bit of poking around on this wonderful series of tubes that is the internets and found this summary of report evaluating 14 initiatives designed to fight organized crime. Thank god the Swedes love to 1) do research, 2) write about it and 3) translate it."

To read the complete post please click on the title, "The Swedish Response to Organized Crime".

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Boiler Room Fraud - Operation Archway

City of London Police is responsible for co-ordinating Operation Archway, the national intelligence reporting system for mass share-marketing, or boiler room, fraud: a crime where investors are cold-called by bogus stockbrokers and persuaded to either buy worthless or non-existent shares, or to buy genuine shares at vastly inflated prices.

A 'boiler room' is a bogus stockbroking company, usually based overseas, which cold-calls investors and pressures them into buying worthless shares. Historically, those targeted were older people with previous experience of investments or share dealing, who typically lost £20,000 each to the fraudsters; 50% of investors today are aged over 65. The biggest individual loss to date recorded by Operation Archway is £1.2 million. In the current economic climate, boiler rooms are starting to target victims who have redundancy money or those who are not experienced investors, and are asking for smaller sums of money to invest.

Those operating the boiler rooms have developed new strategies to target investors, such as a promise to recover monies lost to the original boiler room, or to purchase these worthless shares (once an up-front fee has been paid). In addition, investors are being encouraged to sell previously highly regarded 'blue chip' company shares, such as banks and financial institutions and to invest in green or new technology shares marketed by the boiler rooms, or even to take out loans to fund new investments.

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Island's 'abuse model' a success

Next Thursday (3 December 2009), is the final session of the Freedom Programme, run by former RAF intelligence analyst Fiona Gwinnett. In a nondescript social services building in the town of Newport, Isle of Wight, up to 19 women have been sitting beside each other for two-hour sessions over the past 12 weeks. They have both laughed and cried while sharing their experiences at the hands of their abusive partners.

Many of them will have been referred there by Hampshire Constabulary's domestic abuse officers in the force's public protection unit. Freedom's statistics suggest the approach is working - 260 women attended the programme in 2008. The figures have risen this year - 167 abused women were on the scheme in the first six months.

The increase shows more cases of abuse are being identified meaning more victims can be helped. Instead of attending "domestic incidents" just to keep the peace, police officers are reporting cases to the force public protection unit.

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Florida's Silver Alert Plan

Governor Charlie Crist today recognized the one-year anniversary of Florida’s Silver Alert Plan in October and praised its success in helping return 18 missing elderly persons back home safely. “I’m pleased and proud of the way this program has worked as a safety net for some of our most vulnerable citizens,” said Governor Crist. “I thank our citizens for paying attention to the Silver Alerts, and for doing their part to call in the information law enforcement needs to safely locate these seniors.”

Florida’s Silver Alert Plan was made effective by an Executive Order signed by the Governor on October 8, 2008, and is a standardized system to aid local law enforcement in the rescue of an elderly person with a cognitive impairment who goes missing. The plan calls for the broadcast of important information via the media and highway message signs (in cases involving a vehicle) to enlist citizens in the search for an endangered senior. To date, 115 Silver Alerts have been issued – 110 individuals were located safely, with 18 of those recoveries attributed directly to the Silver Alert.

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2009 Hide His Gun advertising campaign launched

'Hide his gun and help commit the crime' is the message behind Trident's latest publicity campaign. Trident, the Metropolitan Police partnership with London's black communities, has developed the campaign to target 15-19 year old women of African and African-Caribbean heritage who are increasingly becoming involved in the movement and storage of firearms, on behalf of others.

The campaign illustrates that girls who carry and store guns for others are helping to commit the crime, both morally and in the eyes of the law.

There is also a wider community message which encourages people to come forward with information to Crimestoppers. The campaign uses a combination of powerful imagery on posters and storytelling through radio and cinema advertising to engage with the target audience. The posters are being used across poster sites and on female washroom panels in pubs and bars, as well as being distributed to shops via street teams handing out flyers.

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