More about this area
The force says...
Essex covers 1,420 square miles with a 400-mile coastline. The county comprises 75 percent agricultural land, but with a number of significant and spread out major urban conurbations, including Basildon, Thurrock and Southend. The population of Essex is 1.802m with 6.76 percent of residents of minority ethnic origin.
Stansted Airport (the UK’s fourth busiest) handled 28m passengers in 2018 while approximately 2m travellers passed through Southend Airport in 2018.
The London Gateway port is part of the UK’s fasted growing deep-sea container terminal and logistics Hub, and the port of Harwich provides passenger and freight links to Holland.
Essex Police has 1.75 officers per 1,000 head of population and in the year to March 2018responded to almost a million calls, over a quarter of which were emergency calls.
Essex is a diverse county with significant variation in geography, infrastructure, accessibility, and socio-economic factors. These require a tailored policing response which increases the complexity of policing the county.
There is a high and increasing demand for police services due to both the volume of crime and incidents, and their severity. In 2017/18 crime increased by 11.2 percent (compared to an average 12.9 percent increase nationally). The force is amongst the most efficient nationally with the second lowest cost of policing to the taxpayer.
Essex Police has an ambitious transformation programme identifying opportunities to maximise limited resources and improve service quality. Examples include using mobile devices and technology, working with partners to support local communities and collaborating with other forces.
Investing in the skills necessary to investigate modern crimes and, importantly safeguard individuals and communities in an increasingly digital world is a key challenge for the force and a key part of our transformation plan.
Disclaimer: the above statement has been prepared by Essex Police. The views and information in it are not necessarily those of HMICFRS.