More than 300 arrests made during neighbourhood week of action

We have arrested more than 300 individuals in a week during a crackdown on issues affecting our communities during the national neighbourhood policing week of action.

The week-long campaign, spearheaded by the National College of Policing, began on 23 January and saw all 10 of our local policing teams (LPTs) take part.

The focus of the week, as set out by the College, was: early intervention, problem-solving, improving trust and confidence and wellbeing.

As a result, in the seven days from 23 January to 29 January, we made a total of 314 arrests as part of the week of action and normal business, safeguarded a number of vulnerable people and have held more than 100 separate community engagement events across Staffordshire.

These sessions have been held in schools, care homes and community hotspots to help prevent youth knife crime, vehicle theft, anti-social behaviour and burglary.

As part of this effort, we also recently secured a number of closure orders, in partnership with local authorities, to board up problem properties linked to ASB, drug-use and disorder, in Newcastle-under-Lyme and South Staffordshire.

We also disrupted drug supply in our communities, including an arrest in Stoke-on-Trent after around £7,000-worth of monkey dust was discovered during a warrant.

We then made an arrest in Tamworth after we found more than £1,000-worth of stolen goods, believed to have been taken from multiple businesses in the area.

We also arrested more than 25 car theft suspects in January alone and charged more than 10 of them with associated offences as part of our dedicated Operation Bormus.

It is one of the many types of criminality we have made progress on since the launch of our operating model in June 2022, which has resulted in:

• A 33 percent reduction in ASB

• A 6 percent decrease in neighbourhood crime – including burglary, robbery, personal theft and vehicle theft

• An average of 82 more arrests each month compared to the previous model

• Call answering times for 999 continuing to fall month-on-month.

Chief Superintendent Elliot Sharrard-Williams said: “Much of the success of the new policing model relies on neighbourhood officers integrating within local communities to better understand their priorities.

“We’ve taken another positive step in achieving this through our week of action and I’m hopeful that our positive results will continue into the future.

“As a force, we are always proactive in our pursuit of offenders and we’re committed to working hard with our partners to ensure those issues which matter the most to the public are dealt with robustly.”