North Yorkshire PEEL 2017
Effectiveness
How effective is the force at keeping people safe and reducing crime?
How effective is the force at preventing crime, tackling anti-social behaviour and keeping people safe?
This question was not inspected in 2017. The grade and findings from last year’s inspection still stand.
How effective is the force at investigating crime and reducing re-offending?
North Yorkshire Police is good at investigating crime and reducing re-offending. Response officers go to incidents requiring immediate attendance, while less urgent calls are dealt with by appointment at the service desk. The force:
- uses an incident risk assessment process to determine its response; and
- allocates investigations based on:
- the vulnerability of the victim;
- the complexity of the investigation; and
- the skills and experience of the investigator.
Investigators receive good support from other units, such as intelligence, digital media, and scenes of crime. The force’s supervision of investigations is effective.
The force generally provides a good service to crime victims. However, the force needs to understand why some domestic abuse victims do not support police action and make changes so that it can seek justice for them.
North Yorkshire Police is effective in its approach to reducing re-offending. The force is good at assessing the risk posed by dangerous offenders, although it could do more to ensure that frontline officers and staff are aware of the identity of those offenders.
The force works with other organisations to help offenders avoid future involvement in crime, for example by providing drug and alcohol abuse treatment, and anger management courses.
How effective is the force at protecting those who are vulnerable from harm, and supporting victims?
North Yorkshire Police is good at protecting vulnerable people. It has effective processes to identify vulnerability at the first point of contact, including:
- a risk assessment process to assess vulnerability and victims’ needs; and
- flagging vulnerability on its ICT systems, for example to identify repeat and vulnerable victims or those with mental health conditions.
The force answers calls promptly, then assesses risk and provides the appropriate response. A control room supervisor reviews all calls involving vulnerable victims to ensure the force has taken the most appropriate action.
The force is proactive in supporting people with mental health conditions. It works effectively with a range of mental health and crisis care support agencies.
North Yorkshire Police investigates crime involving vulnerable people effectively. The force:
- allocates crime for investigation depending on the level of risk and vulnerability; and
- ensures appropriate safeguarding measures are put in place to protect vulnerable victims.
However, the force should review its use of domestic violence protection orders to ensure that it is making best use of these powers to safeguard victims of domestic abuse.
The force works well with other organisations to provide victims with good care and support during investigations.
Areas for improvement
- The force should improve its understanding of domestic abuse through the accurate collection of domestic abuse data to ensure a consistent service is provided to all victims.
How effective is the force at tackling serious and organised crime?
North Yorkshire Police has a good understanding of the threat posed by serious and organised crime (SOC). The force:
- uses a range of intelligence products and sources to understand the threat of SOC and its likely effect on communities; and
- has processes to identify and map those who are engaged in committing organised crime.
North Yorkshire Police has effective processes to investigate and disrupt SOC. The force has introduced:
- a SOC strategic partnership board where police and partner agencies can exchange information; and
- a disruption panel to enable joint work with other agencies to help disrupt crime.
Trained officers are allocated responsibility for responding to and disrupting those who are engaged in organised crime.
North Yorkshire Police is working in collaboration with other agencies to:
- deter people from becoming involved in SOC; and
- identify individuals who may be at risk of becoming victims of organised crime.
However, the force needs to enhance its approach to the lifetime management of organised criminals, to minimise the risk they pose to local communities.
The force should also:
- improve its understanding of the effect of its activity on SOC; and
- ensure that it learns from experience to maximise its disruptive effect.
Areas for improvement
- The force should enhance its approach to the lifetime management of organised criminals to minimise the risk they pose to local communities. This approach should include routine consideration of ancillary orders, partner agency powers and other tools to deter organised criminals from continuing to offend.
- The force should continue to improve its understanding of the effect of its activity on serious and organised crime with regard to the 4Ps (pursue, prevent, protect and prepare) and ensure that it learns from experience to maximise its disruptive effect.
How effective are the force’s specialist capabilities?
National threats often require forces to work together, across force boundaries. These threats include terrorism, large-scale disorder and civil emergencies. We examined the capabilities in place to respond to these threats, in particular a firearms attack.
Most positively, the force:
- works constructively with other forces in the region to build its capacity to respond to national threats;
- tests its skills in training exercises; and
- has developed specialist capabilities, for example the management of mass casualty disasters.
However, the force should set out its understanding of the criminal use of firearms in a threat assessment that is specific to the North Yorkshire area.