Senior police officials face questions regarding Slough’s violent crime statistics

Chief police officers have been interrogated by local councillors concerning the extent of violent crime in Slough. According to Thames Valley Police statistics, the Berkshire town recorded one homicide and 5,820 violent crimes “against the person” between October 2023 and September 2024. A total of 13,254 “victim-based crimes” were documented, encompassing a broad spectrum of offences from sexual offences to stealing and criminal damage. Labour councillor Fiza Matloob asked officers if a “specific plan” was in place for Slough, a town he stated the figures indicated was “one of, if not the most dangerous town” in the county. Annually, senior police officers present a report on policing activities to local authorities and are subjected to scrutiny by councillors. Mr. Matloob commended the “fantastic job” officers were performing, adding that there was “a lot of respect for you guys in Slough.” However, he noted that residents’ “attitude changes” when they experience violent crime. He stated: “Slough comes out really bad in regards to violent crime, according to the crime rate, it’s one of if not the most dangerous town in Berkshire.“Is there a specific plan to focus on this area, what’s the criteria for the allocation of resources?” Steve Raffield, the local command unit commander for Berkshire East, explained that the force endeavors to apply “an intelligent approach” to identify violent crime hotspots and deploy officers to those areas at times when they would have the “most impact.” He mentioned that officers utilize a “hotspot” policing application to determine where their presence is required. Chief Constable Jason Hogg indicated that Slough and Milton Keynes had the highest workloads for officers within the force. He said: “If there is a particularly high demand in Slough, we can put more officers into Slough.” Mr. Hogg commented that officers possessed greater “agility” than before, allowing them to be rapidly deployed to an area to address a problem, and then withdrawn once the situation was settled. A spokesperson for Thames Valley Police informed the BBC: “It remains a priority [of the force] to tackle violent and knife-enabled crime.” They added that since 2022, the force has implemented Operation Deter, a zero-tolerance strategy for tackling knife crime. This initiative has led to the introduction of harsher consequences and a reduction in the time between an offence, charge, and court proceedings, they further stated. Correction 13 November 2024: This article was amended after a previous version wrongly stated there had been 12 homicides between October 2023 and September 2024. There had been one, according to Thames Valley Police figures. It also incorrectly said there were 63,692 violent crimes “against the person” and 147,910 “victim-based crimes” in Slough but those were force-wide figures. The figures for Slough were 5,820 and 13,254, respectively. You can follow BBC Berkshire on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram. Copyright 2024 BBC. All rights reserved. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read about our approach to external linking.