CRIME PREVENTION AND DETECTION, LIVERPOOL (Hansard, 22 June 1965)

§ Mr. John Tilney (Liverpool, Wavertree)

I count myself lucky, even at this unusual hour, to have been fortunate in the ballot so that I can call attention to Liverpool's method of crime prevention and detection. Liverpool is well known for many things and some people. Her police authority is already famous for the use of juvenile liaison officers. This has been copied by many other authorities and in many parts of the world. I suggest to the Under-Secretary—and I am grateful to him for coming to the House at this hour—that police authorities in other cities might copy the new method of crime detection initiated by the police authority in my city whereby crime in the last months has been greatly reduced and detection increased.

One should bear in mind that during 1964 the total of crimes in Liverpool was the high figure of 35,341, an increase of 4,592 over 1963, or 14.9 per cent. Excluding minor crimes, the remaining total of 30,307 was the highest ever recorded in Liverpool being an increase of 3,523 or 13.2 per cent. on the total for 1963. That was exceeded only in London. Moreover, the percentage of crime detected was only 31.3 per cent., a reduction of 0.5 per cent. of the crimes detected in 1963.

1716 The House may think it odd to call attention to these figures, but I want to emphasise that the crime rate was going up and detection was dropping. However, on 12th November of last year cameras, both roving and static, were installed high up on buildings in various parts of the city. Few people know where they are. I have been privileged to watch the television screens of some of them. Some have remote control and zoom lenses so that one can get a good image of people or vehicles a long way away. I should like to pay tribute to Mr. H. R. Balmer who, when he became Acting Chief Constable, was responsible for this innovation, and I should like to pay tribute also to the anti-crime commandos who work so well with this new equipment.

The effect has been quite remarkable. For the first five months of this year, all crime has dropped from 13,223 in 1964 to 10,696, a decrease of 2,527 or 19.1 per cent. Breaking offences have gone down from 4,700 to 3,808, a decrease of 892 or 19 per cent. The number of thefts from unattended vehicles shows a decrease of 1,142 from 2,864 to 1,722, a drop of 40 per cent., while larceny of vehicles is down by 25 per cent.

In the A Division, which is in the centre of the city, there were about 130 to 150 thefts from vehicles each week in the past. There are now about 20 to 25. Thefts of vehicles are down from about 45 or 50 a week to only about 18. In this division break-ins have dropped by 35 per cent. and, moreover, the detection rate has gone up from 29.1 per cent. to 43.2 per cent. for the first five months of the year.

There are several points to remember. First, the Liverpool police force is 550 short of its establishment of 2,680. It lost no fewer than 120 men last year. If we cannot have traffic police with a lower physique than the other constables who have other duties, it seems all the more important to be able to make the maximum use of modern apparatus.

Secondly, the cameras are only part of crime detection. They would be useless without the anti-crime commandoes who are policemen and women in plain clothes. This type of commando is in contact, either by car or more probably by hidden portable radio, with whoever 1717 is watering the screen on the roving eye. Thirdly, no member of the public can easily see a camera on a building whereas a policeman with high-powered binoculars can be hidden only with difficulty. The camera, by remote control, can often scan an area of 360 degrees. Its picture, or pictures from several different cameras, can be watched in comfort in a room hidden from the public view or knowledge.

Fourthly, cameras can be moved about easily. As a crime area changes so can the cameras. Even if some people know the numbers of the cameras that are operating and their sites, dummies can be left so that no one knows whether or not he or she is being watched. My fifth point is that people other than regular policemen can watch these screens, thus saving much labour. This enables the police to do their proper job. A detective constable in Lime Street, in Liverpool, because of the installation of these cameras was able to detect 21 crimes in one week instead of his average of three in the past. Twenty-one in a week against 150 in a year is a good advance. Sixthly, cameras can often see from above when a man on the ground is prevented from seeing by a screen of cars or a fence.

The Liverpool police have also taken the initiative under the Magistrates' Courts Act, of 1963. They are now very much more lenient on the small offences, such as drunkenness. This used to use five and a quarter hours of a policeman's time per drunk, through the policeman having to attend court. Most of the drunks now plead guilty by post. The police take the drunk to a place of safety and release him when he is sober. Subsequent proceedings are taken by post, so that much time is saved by all concerned.

The innovation of the camera has had a remarkable psychological effect on the potential criminal. The House would think it is somewhat symptomatic of 1984 and that Big Brother is really looking at one, but I am glad to say that the police have had no complaint from Liverpool citizens, up till now.

I cannot see any difference between this and a documentary film. Personally, I should have no complaint at all of a 1718 photographic record being kept of all suspicious actions seen on the screens which were then followed up by the commandos. In many ways, such a record would be more accurate than the evidence from radar screens used for testing whether cars exceed the speed limit. Would not such cameras also reduce larceny in major stores? I also would have no objection to the use by the police of infra-red searchlights, perfected by the Dutch, though not in use at present, at any rate by the police in Liverpool. I do not know whether they will think of using them in the future. These searchlights pierce the darkness enabling one to see into an unlit street or room, as if it were daylight.

Providing no one is doing anything illegal, I do not see why anyone should object to the use of these searchlights. Something like the train robbery or the Post Office van hold-up may shortly happen in Liverpool, but there has been enough time to weigh up the advantages of this Liverpool experiment. Police in other cities should be supplied with more radios and more cameras allied with plain clothes police commandos. The Minister will agree that we want the crime wave abated, and I hope that he will say that Liverpool has shown the way to do it.

§ The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. George Thomas)

I congratulate the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Tilney) on the initiative which he has shown in bringing to the attention of the House the experiment under way at Liverpool. The country is accustomed to Liverpool people being proud of its achievements, and in many fields Liverpool leads the way. I congratulate the hon. Gentleman also on the detailed information which he has obtained from the police. I in no way question his figures because they were the figures supplied by the police to the Home Office today. Obviously he has been very well briefed.

No one can be under any illusion about the need for rapid and constructive thought being given to combating the rising figures of crime in this country. All of us are concerned at the ugly increase in crime throughout our land. My right hon. and learned Friend the 1719 Home Secretary very much welcomes the initiative which Liverpool has shown. Police forces in many parts of the country are experimenting with other new methods and ways of combating crime and they have shown considerably increased interest in what is happening in Liverpool. They have been visiting Liverpool and watching the experiment there.

As far as I know, the Liverpool police force is the only force which is using closed circuit television in town work. The Liverpool experiment began on 16th November, 1964, after a survey of crime problems in the city. Briefly, it consists in the combined use of plain clothes patrols and closed circuit television, and I understand that the Press has nicknamed the plain clothes patrols as commandos, an honourable name to which no one takes exception.

The hon. Gentleman may be assured that throughout the land police forces are not reluctant to embark on experiments. I in no way seek to detract from the initiative which Liverpool has shown, but it is as well to remind the House that the police force of Bolton has pioneered research into beat patrols. The police forces of Shropshire, Hampshire and the City of London have always been well ahead in the organisation of crime prevention. Recently, I paid a visit to the Carmarthenshire and Cardiganshire Police Force and was tremendously impressed with its keenness about crime prevention. It was almost greater than its keenness about crime detection, because if we can prevent crime, so much the better. I recently visited also the Bedfordshire County Police and found the same keen enthusiasm about various techniques in crime prevention. We are, therefore, making a careful survey of the new methods that are under way throughout the country. New ideas are percolating through the police forces as they are determined to get on top of the crime wave.

Members of the Home Office Police Research and Planning Branch have visited Liverpool and they are at present engaged in studying statistics provided by the Liverpool force at our request. It is right, therefore, that the Liverpool experiments should be fitted into the general pattern of research which 1720 was established when the Home Office Police Research and Planning Branch was set up in August, 1963, in broad accordance with the recommendations of the Royal Commission on the Police.

The branch was directed to pay particular and urgent attention to the problem of serious and unsolved crime. Ever since the research branch has been collecting and observing evidence of new methods all over the country. We have never intended that local initiative and local experiments should be checked because we have established a Research and Planning Branch here in the metropolitan centre.

It has always been a valuable tradition of our police forces that they have not been afraid to experiment with new methods and I hope that this will continue. It is, however, equally right, and I am sure that the hon. Member will agree, that there should be co-ordination at the centre to see that there is no overlapping between different experiments in different forces and that the benefit of each experiment is carefully analysed and made known to every other force.

The regional crime squads, 600 officers strong, were set up in April this year as a mobile force to combat the mobile criminal. Work is going on centrally and with local co-operation, first, upon the policing of motorways, an experiment in which closed-circuit television was again used; secondly, upon the potentialities of using computer techniques in police work; and thirdly, upon many other urgent problems of organisation and technique which the hon. Member will not expect me to go into in detail now.

I do not quote this central work to belittle local experiment—far from it; we welcome it—but to show the background against which local experiments such as those in Liverpool fit in and to emphasise that although the establishment of a central research body can already be seen to be paying dividends, there is also room for local initiative and experiment.

As to the final results of the Liverpool experiment, I hope that the hon. Member—who is also my hon. Friend, since we are so few in the House—will forgive me if I do not try to weigh up all the results just now. More time must elapse before a considered judgment can be 1721 given. Liverpool itself is not sure yet whether the reduction is due to the television or to the extra patrols or to the publicity. There are various factors that must be weighed in the balance. Of this there is no doubt: that in the first few months of this year there has been a substantial reduction in crime and an increase in detection as compared with last year. I should like to express the thanks of the Home Office to the Press for their co-operation in this matter and to the television and radio authorities, because they have all helped the police in this experiment.

One of the questions to which special attention is being given is the extent to which the reduction of crime, which we welcome, in Liverpool has been due to the manpower question or to television or publicity. I will not burden the House with figures. The hon. Gentleman has given them to us. It is important to know how far these initial results will continue even after the first shock effect has worn off. We all hope that they will continue. Indeed, I am very glad to say that the Liverpool force is cooperating with the Home Office in providing statistics which will enable this process of analysis of the results to be quickly completed, and I undertake to the hon. Gentleman and to the House that ally useful results will be quickly communicated to other police authorities throughout the land; but we must first sift and analyse, to be absolutely sure, before recommendations or advice are given.

The House will realise that the police service as a whole is not lying down in the face of the current increase in crime. Once again, I know that the House will join with me in expressing the gratitude which we feel to our police forces all over the land for undertaking a difficult job on behalf of the rest of the community, and going it with a good spirit and a sense of high values. A great deal of guidance has already been issued by my right hon. and learned Friend to the police authorities and the police forces of the country as a result of experiments already completed. It would surprise the British public if they knew how many experiments are under way in an effort to combat crime, and all of us must hope that from the great number of experiments now going on, both centrally 1722 and locally, my right hon. and learned Friend will be enabled soon to issue useful guidance to the police forces of the country. We are indebted to forces like that of Liverpool who are showing determination not to be behind the times in trying out new experiments.

The hon. Gentleman rightly paid tribute to the Acting Chief Constable. As the hon. Gentleman knows, Mr. Haughton, Assistant Chief Constable of Staffordshire, who has for the past two years been head of the Home Office Police Research and Planning Branch, has been appointed Chief Constable of Liverpool, and will, I understand, be taking over his duties on 1st August. I believe that this will result in even closer co-operation between Liverpool and the central research branch, and that the House can be confident that the lessons which emerge from the Liverpool experiments will be made available to other forces.

The hon. Gentleman told us that there have been no complaints from the Liverpool public about the use of television. I could understand, and so could he, the anxiety of some people about being watched as they go about the streets; we do not want every street in Britain to be under the television eye—but it will not be. I think that the people of Liverpool must feel a deep sense of gratitude that crime is being reduced and the liberty of law-abiding people is being increased and more greatly protected.

It was a very useful suggestion which the hon. Gentleman made—about infrared, did he say?—