Cumbria Police hope other forces across the UK will take note and reintroduce more local ‘beat’ policing
A seaside town has seen anti-social behaviour drop by almost half after introducing just one “bobby on the beat”.
In the last nine months, since community beat officer PC Sam Steele has patrolled the streets of Maryport, in Cumbria, anti-social behaviour (ASB) has reduced by 47 per cent compared to the same period last year.
Now Cumbria Police hope other forces across the UK will take note and reintroduce more local ‘beat’ policing – especially in rural areas where officers can really get to know all local youths and businesses.
PC Sam Steele explained: “They see you day to day and they know you’re their friend – and they know why you’re there.
“You’re not there to enforce necessarily on them, but you’re there to just be a part of their community. We’re not reinventing any wheels, we’re just doing it the logical way, the way it should be done.
“Walking around and being that visible presence, recognising people that we know and catching people in the act – and nipping it in the bud.
“We’ve seen it in Maryport, a 47 per cent reduction in the amount of antisocial behaviour logs. That’s great – that’s 47 per cent less calls that the officer that normally responds has to respond to.
“The different towns need different approaches and different officers and Maryport is one where it’s a very friendly, open town.
“They all talk to me – it’s all by names and as we said, you’ll fight with someone one day and the next day they’ll shake your hand.”
Anti-social behaviour (ASB) is classed as acts that cause intimidation and fear in residents, with examples being vandalism, harassment, anti-social drinking, vehicle abandonment and trespassing.
Almost like doing what police officers are supposed to do
Unbelievable scenes that crime is reduced when an officer is in the Public eye within the vicinity.
Neighbourhood policing or however we currenty brand it, saw a massive reduction due to austerity cuts (less civilian staff = more officers in the… office). Usually takes years to revive it effectively (getting to know your beat and folks in it).
Its also counter intuitive in that you dont actually solve or spot many crimes by walking / driving your beat, but people feel safer and offenders have more of a “potential copper surprise” to consider. Not great for KPIs / crime stats, hence quickly dropped if resources are low, but totally works in terms of visibility.
Who would have thought that a visible police presence would be a deterrent? What a bloody surprise that must have been.
Perhaps the government should properly fund the police, then perhaps they’d be able to spare more bobbies for beat work? Just an idea.
Well this is ground breaking research, has this been done with the next generation AI, chat gpt 5? Has science gone too far?
Fantastic what can be accomplished if the police isn’t constantly forced to cut costs and let go of police officers/close police stations/etc
If you want this in your area, DON’T VOTE TORY!! Many, many thousands of police roles cut due to Tory austerinty policies..
As anti-police as so many countries are now, its amazing you see people say “police aren’t the solution, we need to change the culture”. People walking around a busy area quickly realise over months when they don’t see police presence, that they can do what they want with no consequences.
One thing I always find interesting is people’s very negative attitudes towards “surveillance” like CCTV or facial recognition… but surveillance from a human officer is percieved very positively.
I’d argue a beat cop is just a walking facial recognition surveillance device. They know the names and faces of known troublemakers.
​
The effect from having just one beat cop is the “panopticon” – you’re not being watched all the time, but you know that it’s possible a police officer will observe you just as you commit a crime, so you refrain from doing it.
There’s downright paranoia about electronic policing methods, yet total comfort with the human equivalent.
​
I’m not really making a point for or against either, I just think it’s interesting that people’s attitudes appear to be so inconsistent. To me, at least.
Well yeah. People only do half of it because there is nobody to interfere.
add in any reasonable chance they might get caught, or even just the added perception that they might get caught, such as having even one police officer milling about and suddenly its not so attractive to do it.
Those are amazing results. Strong reason to reintroduce this across the UK
Breaking news purpose and impact of police discovered by Conservative Party Politcal Newspaper.
We already know! It’s been screamed from the rooftops for a decade.
Criminals less likely to commit crime when the chances of it being witnessed by a police officer are higher.
In other news, water confirmed to be wet
In my hometown we have huge problems with the local addicts in the high street. Daily shoplifting, anti-social behaviour, violence. So much of it has been improved by a regular police presence.
It’s mental how much this is a common sense solution to so many problems:
– Women are worried to walk alone in some areas
– There is more petty crime like phone and wallet theft going on
– Teenagers are doing graffiti in my neighbourhood
– Kids are bunking off school
– People are being arseholes to each other in the street
etc etc etc.
I get that people are less and less keen on authority but I think a couple of friendly but stern coppers on the beat in most towns at most times would sort out most of these problems. Easier in small towns than big cities but then, not every problem is the same.
“this is the chief inspector… Deploy Nicholas Angel!”
The problem really is the public don’t appreciate all of this kind of stuff at the time it still exists. So the Tories, and it’s always the Tories, can get rid of it and most people just don’t care.
Why did they cut it?
Random theory: Cutting them didn’t immediately cause anti-social behaviour so it was seen as worth while cost cutting. But now years later and there is a clear problem, reversing it helps rapidly.
To be fair this is in Cumbria. I feel like in cities even the kids would view a single police officer as a target if anything.
I’ve seen groups of teenagers taunt police in Finsbury park whilst riding dirt bikes around, fighting each other, throwing shit at people/police whilst the 2 or 3 police just wait for backup
Whats that quote about progressives taking the most basic ideas and acting like they discovered Atlantis?
Police KPI targets are based on reactionary results as opposed to preventative
Cutting edge methods, imagine if they had this process 50 years ago.
PC Angel cleaning up the streets I see.
All for the greater good.
Edit: Just read his real name. It’s not so far off.
Meanwhile up north at the moment we have more police on the beat than the population of our town,( no joke) yet antisocial behaviour is on the up….
We had a local bobby on our estate where I grew up in the 90’s. He wasn’t an arsehole or intimidating but commanded respect. He would tolerate us at 15/16 having a few beers in the ground of the school or park, as long as we didn’t cause bother or leave litter behind and because of that we didn’t take the piss. The kids growing up here will have probably never seen one on the beat growing up, no wonder they are all utter dicks.
I’ve been booted off the uk police sub for suggesting cops could just walk around a bit.
Our part of London was responsible for the start of the riots, and I still think we’re being punished. During lockdown, I saw a Transit van with riot shields over the windscreen drive onto our local rec, right I’ve the fields, drive up to people picnicking and yell GO HOME through a megaphone. Same thing on another common, but this time, with a fucking helicopter. Yep, a megaphone on a helicopter.
When I see patrol cars driving through our high street, assuming they haven’t got the lights on, I watch the officers inside to see if they’re paying attention to anything outside. Never.
I fully expect to be downvoted for writing this, but this headline vindicates my opinion. They should get out of their cars and walk around a bit, might find it gives them a bit less to do after the fact.
So man gets a job and crime drops. Clearly he was the one doing all the crimes and now he is too busy cos he’s working. Send him to prison.
I know a lot of the dodgy bastards in my neck of the woods despite only moving here last year – purely from just walking about to the shops and back etc.
If any crime was committed, I could point the cops to the same five doors and they’d probably find the culprit. It’s the same in any scheme. The cops need to be on the streets, not dealing with the fallout of our failed mental health, social care and drugs strategies.
Oh, and by ‘strategies’, I mean sucking the lifeblood out of society with an ideological war on public services.
We used to do this. We had safer neighbourhoods teams, comprising officers and PCSOs. We had fully manned response unit’s too. Now they’re understaffed, merged, or gone.
I do believe policing has become too driving focused. Yes it’s good getting to call straight away. But how many people can put a face to the local coppers in your patch?
The people who make these decisions don’t really care as there unaffected by these problems.
They’ve got bolder now. And I mean literally investing in antisocial shit like illegal escooters they used to flit about on dealing drugs, or petrol miniature motorbikes and quad bikes they ride around on footpaths with.
On an average evening a copper could walk around the estate I live in and make half a dozen arrests for dumb stuff.
I’m trying to report an uninsured moped that’s literally driving up and down our street with no helmet on doing wheelies and skids. Rang 999. Told to report on 101. Tried to fill out online form. Lost all I entered due to an unmovable fucking cookies analytics button. Calling 101 now and told 23 minute queue and I’m position 12. What’s the fucking point of the police?
Almost like the thing that worked for 150 years works…
In Tokyo, the most populous city on Earth, there’s very little street crime.
They have police boxes on most corners that always have a police officer in them.
What have we been asking for for the last 30+ years? Finally someone listened.
The country has gone to the dogs because the bean counters took over, no crimes = less police, less police = more crime, same in the nhs and areas of local govt.
Retrain all the police that are being wasted by trying to catch out mean tweets on social media, and get them on the streets.
When my town used to have a few policemen on patrol ~15 years ago, it also helped to improve public-police relationships because they end up chatting to locals, and people realise that coppers aren’t all the evil racist pigs that social media has tried to pretend that they are…
I was out cycling the other day when a police officer drove by a motorbike and waved. Me and my friend were so shocked we both completely just stared at the bloke and fell off our bikes at the same time.
Kinda shocking tbh.
I never understood why they can’t just bring this back. Honestly even if its expensive surely its worth it? We would all feel safer with (good) police officers patrolling the streets.
Well, I say that…but of course people don’t trust the police nowadays and probably for good reason.
I’m a Cop and I’d love to get out on foot.
I’m on an emergency response team but the realities of working in a large city force is the “beat” bobbies end up back filling.
Then some of the beat bobbies have various issues such as having multiple beats.
I want to be a beat bobby in the future in a traditionally rough area as I love problem solving.
But the reality there too many cops in officers doing roles civilians should of or the jobs should be side gigs.
There cops in my Force in diversity and inclusion roles but I think it should be a part time role so they can make there difference from the front and by that link to the ivory towers of police headquaters.
More importantly well done to this Cop.
The reality of police is lots of people are leaving so I can’t see this being replicated outside of rural areas.
In japan police will cruise round in their cars with the lights on, no siren just to let people know they are there.
There are police boxes everywhere so you know you are never far from them.
Just knowing there is police around cuts crime down, its not a hard concept. People generally do not want to get seen let alone caught.
It’s widly known in criminology that a high risk of being caught is more of a deterrent than the sentencing. Think about that for a minute.
So this guy was causing half the problems? Recruit the other one too, problem solved
American here wondering what you all mean by “anti-social behavior” is this some newspeak term for undesirables?
People loiter/drink/deal/rob without local pressure for potential consequences, it’s just logical. They’ll just go elsewhere, but it’s also important they’re routinely suppressed – a beat in any high crime area to never, ever let the problem fester. Harassment? To bad crowds, yeah – they don’t get to feel invulnerable and safe.
Now, the big question – how do we sort crime? Not just deter or solve? Sigh…
Even as a kid growing up in the early-mid 00s; they were active in home town a fair bit like this. I lived in an area that was about 60-70% Lower middle class with pretty low crime from age 13 onward and I genuinely believe this contributed to that.
Who wouldve thought a police presence deters criminal behaviour 🤷♂️ next we should undertake a study to see how many farts a gibbon can produce in an hour on a diet of heinz beans.
50 comments
Cumbria Police hope other forces across the UK will take note and reintroduce more local ‘beat’ policing
A seaside town has seen anti-social behaviour drop by almost half after introducing just one “bobby on the beat”.
In the last nine months, since community beat officer PC Sam Steele has patrolled the streets of Maryport, in Cumbria, anti-social behaviour (ASB) has reduced by 47 per cent compared to the same period last year.
Now Cumbria Police hope other forces across the UK will take note and reintroduce more local ‘beat’ policing – especially in rural areas where officers can really get to know all local youths and businesses.
PC Sam Steele explained: “They see you day to day and they know you’re their friend – and they know why you’re there.
“You’re not there to enforce necessarily on them, but you’re there to just be a part of their community. We’re not reinventing any wheels, we’re just doing it the logical way, the way it should be done.
“Walking around and being that visible presence, recognising people that we know and catching people in the act – and nipping it in the bud.
“We’ve seen it in Maryport, a 47 per cent reduction in the amount of antisocial behaviour logs. That’s great – that’s 47 per cent less calls that the officer that normally responds has to respond to.
“The different towns need different approaches and different officers and Maryport is one where it’s a very friendly, open town.
“They all talk to me – it’s all by names and as we said, you’ll fight with someone one day and the next day they’ll shake your hand.”
Anti-social behaviour (ASB) is classed as acts that cause intimidation and fear in residents, with examples being vandalism, harassment, anti-social drinking, vehicle abandonment and trespassing.
Almost like doing what police officers are supposed to do
Unbelievable scenes that crime is reduced when an officer is in the Public eye within the vicinity.
Neighbourhood policing or however we currenty brand it, saw a massive reduction due to austerity cuts (less civilian staff = more officers in the… office). Usually takes years to revive it effectively (getting to know your beat and folks in it).
Its also counter intuitive in that you dont actually solve or spot many crimes by walking / driving your beat, but people feel safer and offenders have more of a “potential copper surprise” to consider. Not great for KPIs / crime stats, hence quickly dropped if resources are low, but totally works in terms of visibility.
Who would have thought that a visible police presence would be a deterrent? What a bloody surprise that must have been.
Perhaps the government should properly fund the police, then perhaps they’d be able to spare more bobbies for beat work? Just an idea.
Well this is ground breaking research, has this been done with the next generation AI, chat gpt 5? Has science gone too far?
Fantastic what can be accomplished if the police isn’t constantly forced to cut costs and let go of police officers/close police stations/etc
If you want this in your area, DON’T VOTE TORY!! Many, many thousands of police roles cut due to Tory austerinty policies..
As anti-police as so many countries are now, its amazing you see people say “police aren’t the solution, we need to change the culture”. People walking around a busy area quickly realise over months when they don’t see police presence, that they can do what they want with no consequences.
One thing I always find interesting is people’s very negative attitudes towards “surveillance” like CCTV or facial recognition… but surveillance from a human officer is percieved very positively.
I’d argue a beat cop is just a walking facial recognition surveillance device. They know the names and faces of known troublemakers.
​
The effect from having just one beat cop is the “panopticon” – you’re not being watched all the time, but you know that it’s possible a police officer will observe you just as you commit a crime, so you refrain from doing it.
There’s downright paranoia about electronic policing methods, yet total comfort with the human equivalent.
​
I’m not really making a point for or against either, I just think it’s interesting that people’s attitudes appear to be so inconsistent. To me, at least.
Well yeah. People only do half of it because there is nobody to interfere.
add in any reasonable chance they might get caught, or even just the added perception that they might get caught, such as having even one police officer milling about and suddenly its not so attractive to do it.
Those are amazing results. Strong reason to reintroduce this across the UK
Breaking news purpose and impact of police discovered by Conservative Party Politcal Newspaper.
We already know! It’s been screamed from the rooftops for a decade.
Criminals less likely to commit crime when the chances of it being witnessed by a police officer are higher.
In other news, water confirmed to be wet
In my hometown we have huge problems with the local addicts in the high street. Daily shoplifting, anti-social behaviour, violence. So much of it has been improved by a regular police presence.
It’s mental how much this is a common sense solution to so many problems:
– Women are worried to walk alone in some areas
– There is more petty crime like phone and wallet theft going on
– Teenagers are doing graffiti in my neighbourhood
– Kids are bunking off school
– People are being arseholes to each other in the street
etc etc etc.
I get that people are less and less keen on authority but I think a couple of friendly but stern coppers on the beat in most towns at most times would sort out most of these problems. Easier in small towns than big cities but then, not every problem is the same.
“this is the chief inspector… Deploy Nicholas Angel!”
The problem really is the public don’t appreciate all of this kind of stuff at the time it still exists. So the Tories, and it’s always the Tories, can get rid of it and most people just don’t care.
Why did they cut it?
Random theory: Cutting them didn’t immediately cause anti-social behaviour so it was seen as worth while cost cutting. But now years later and there is a clear problem, reversing it helps rapidly.
To be fair this is in Cumbria. I feel like in cities even the kids would view a single police officer as a target if anything.
I’ve seen groups of teenagers taunt police in Finsbury park whilst riding dirt bikes around, fighting each other, throwing shit at people/police whilst the 2 or 3 police just wait for backup
Whats that quote about progressives taking the most basic ideas and acting like they discovered Atlantis?
Police KPI targets are based on reactionary results as opposed to preventative
Cutting edge methods, imagine if they had this process 50 years ago.
PC Angel cleaning up the streets I see.
All for the greater good.
Edit: Just read his real name. It’s not so far off.
Meanwhile up north at the moment we have more police on the beat than the population of our town,( no joke) yet antisocial behaviour is on the up….
We had a local bobby on our estate where I grew up in the 90’s. He wasn’t an arsehole or intimidating but commanded respect. He would tolerate us at 15/16 having a few beers in the ground of the school or park, as long as we didn’t cause bother or leave litter behind and because of that we didn’t take the piss. The kids growing up here will have probably never seen one on the beat growing up, no wonder they are all utter dicks.
I’ve been booted off the uk police sub for suggesting cops could just walk around a bit.
Our part of London was responsible for the start of the riots, and I still think we’re being punished. During lockdown, I saw a Transit van with riot shields over the windscreen drive onto our local rec, right I’ve the fields, drive up to people picnicking and yell GO HOME through a megaphone. Same thing on another common, but this time, with a fucking helicopter. Yep, a megaphone on a helicopter.
When I see patrol cars driving through our high street, assuming they haven’t got the lights on, I watch the officers inside to see if they’re paying attention to anything outside. Never.
I fully expect to be downvoted for writing this, but this headline vindicates my opinion. They should get out of their cars and walk around a bit, might find it gives them a bit less to do after the fact.
So man gets a job and crime drops. Clearly he was the one doing all the crimes and now he is too busy cos he’s working. Send him to prison.
I know a lot of the dodgy bastards in my neck of the woods despite only moving here last year – purely from just walking about to the shops and back etc.
If any crime was committed, I could point the cops to the same five doors and they’d probably find the culprit. It’s the same in any scheme. The cops need to be on the streets, not dealing with the fallout of our failed mental health, social care and drugs strategies.
Oh, and by ‘strategies’, I mean sucking the lifeblood out of society with an ideological war on public services.
We used to do this. We had safer neighbourhoods teams, comprising officers and PCSOs. We had fully manned response unit’s too. Now they’re understaffed, merged, or gone.
I do believe policing has become too driving focused. Yes it’s good getting to call straight away. But how many people can put a face to the local coppers in your patch?
The people who make these decisions don’t really care as there unaffected by these problems.
They’ve got bolder now. And I mean literally investing in antisocial shit like illegal escooters they used to flit about on dealing drugs, or petrol miniature motorbikes and quad bikes they ride around on footpaths with.
On an average evening a copper could walk around the estate I live in and make half a dozen arrests for dumb stuff.
I’m trying to report an uninsured moped that’s literally driving up and down our street with no helmet on doing wheelies and skids. Rang 999. Told to report on 101. Tried to fill out online form. Lost all I entered due to an unmovable fucking cookies analytics button. Calling 101 now and told 23 minute queue and I’m position 12. What’s the fucking point of the police?
Almost like the thing that worked for 150 years works…
In Tokyo, the most populous city on Earth, there’s very little street crime.
They have police boxes on most corners that always have a police officer in them.
What have we been asking for for the last 30+ years? Finally someone listened.
The country has gone to the dogs because the bean counters took over, no crimes = less police, less police = more crime, same in the nhs and areas of local govt.
Retrain all the police that are being wasted by trying to catch out mean tweets on social media, and get them on the streets.
When my town used to have a few policemen on patrol ~15 years ago, it also helped to improve public-police relationships because they end up chatting to locals, and people realise that coppers aren’t all the evil racist pigs that social media has tried to pretend that they are…
I was out cycling the other day when a police officer drove by a motorbike and waved. Me and my friend were so shocked we both completely just stared at the bloke and fell off our bikes at the same time.
Kinda shocking tbh.
I never understood why they can’t just bring this back. Honestly even if its expensive surely its worth it? We would all feel safer with (good) police officers patrolling the streets.
Well, I say that…but of course people don’t trust the police nowadays and probably for good reason.
I’m a Cop and I’d love to get out on foot.
I’m on an emergency response team but the realities of working in a large city force is the “beat” bobbies end up back filling.
Then some of the beat bobbies have various issues such as having multiple beats.
I want to be a beat bobby in the future in a traditionally rough area as I love problem solving.
But the reality there too many cops in officers doing roles civilians should of or the jobs should be side gigs.
There cops in my Force in diversity and inclusion roles but I think it should be a part time role so they can make there difference from the front and by that link to the ivory towers of police headquaters.
More importantly well done to this Cop.
The reality of police is lots of people are leaving so I can’t see this being replicated outside of rural areas.
In japan police will cruise round in their cars with the lights on, no siren just to let people know they are there.
There are police boxes everywhere so you know you are never far from them.
Just knowing there is police around cuts crime down, its not a hard concept. People generally do not want to get seen let alone caught.
It’s widly known in criminology that a high risk of being caught is more of a deterrent than the sentencing. Think about that for a minute.
So this guy was causing half the problems? Recruit the other one too, problem solved
American here wondering what you all mean by “anti-social behavior” is this some newspeak term for undesirables?
People loiter/drink/deal/rob without local pressure for potential consequences, it’s just logical. They’ll just go elsewhere, but it’s also important they’re routinely suppressed – a beat in any high crime area to never, ever let the problem fester. Harassment? To bad crowds, yeah – they don’t get to feel invulnerable and safe.
Now, the big question – how do we sort crime? Not just deter or solve? Sigh…
Even as a kid growing up in the early-mid 00s; they were active in home town a fair bit like this. I lived in an area that was about 60-70% Lower middle class with pretty low crime from age 13 onward and I genuinely believe this contributed to that.
Who wouldve thought a police presence deters criminal behaviour 🤷♂️ next we should undertake a study to see how many farts a gibbon can produce in an hour on a diet of heinz beans.