Community Policing
Code of good practice
The code of good practice for public access to local crime information for police forces and authorities in England and Wales will help police connect with residents.
The government’s crime strategy (new window), contained a commitment to provide the public with access to more and better local crime information.
That commitment set a deadline of July 2008, and said the information must be available on a monthly and consistent basis at a level that makes sense locally.
All forces met the target, and were reporting to the public on local force or police authority websites at basic command unit (BCU) level. They should be reporting at sub-BCU level by the end of 2008.
Part of a broad effort
The commitment forms a key part of the government’s wider agenda to engage local communities with police, and enhance local accountability.
Detailed proposals were set out in the policing green paper.
The Home Office worked in partnership with a wide range of stakeholders including forces, police authorities, the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) (new window), the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) (new window), the Association of Police Authorities (APA) (new window) and a virtual network of practitioners to produce this code.
It sets out the minimum standards all forces will be expected to meet by the end of 2008.
