Some may judge the question posed in the title of this post as superfluous, with the answer so obviously ‘yes’ that it’s not worthy of further consideration. But consider these two case studies. Case One – Mr. A For some years, Mr. A has lived in a flat at a LBWF sheltered housing block. In March 2021, he answered a knock on his door, and was confronted by a tradesman who claimed to be from ... »
The Waltham Forest Safer Neighbourhood Board (WFSNB) brings together councillors and residents, and is a potentially very important component of the local fight against crime, supported, as it is, by LBWF, the Metropolitan Police Service, and the Mayor’s Office for Policing And Crime (MOPAC), and charged with ‘bringing police and communities together to decide local policing ... »
In May 2017, this blog published a post entitled ‘Knife crime in Waltham Forest: a nasty little scandal (1)’, which, somewhat unexpectedly, attracted a big readership. What follows provides an update, focusing both on knife crime specifically, and the broader (though intimately related) issue of gangs and gang violence. First off, and very regrettably, it is worth underlining that the knife crime ... »
It is abundantly evident that many people in the borough, from many different backgrounds, are worried about the seemingly unchecked level of local gang-related crime, and the grave impact that this is having on young people’s lives. It is therefore astonishing that those who turned to LBWF’s website yesterday in order to find out what the Cabinet is intending to do about gangs found themselves gr... »
A post of September past (see link below) reported that, though in FYs 2015-16 and 2016-17 the Waltham Forest Safer Neighbourhood Board (WFSNB) had been allotted £78,000 of Mayor’s Officer for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) funding, and promised to rigorously track how this was spent, it had so far failed to submit anywhere near the required number of monitoring reports. Now it has just emerged that n... »
According to the Waltham Forest Guardian, there were serious stabbings in Walthamstow on the 14, 16, and 19 November just past, leading the police to impose a section 60 order, which allows them augmented powers of stop and search. On 17 November, the Leader of LBWF, Clare Coghill, issued a press release: ‘”I fully understand that the community is concerned following the two violent in... »
Previous posts have dealt in depth with the travails of the Waltham Forest Safer Neighbourhoods Board (WFSNB) – its inability to hold regular meetings, the incompleteness of its minutes, and the fact that it publicly named constituent members without asking their permission, or (bizarrely) even informing them that they had been signed up to serve. Now it emerges that there are major concerns about... »
In mid-June, I contacted the Mayor’s Officer for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) to inquire about whether it or LBWF had prime responsibility for the Waltham Forest Safer Neighbourhoods Board (WFSNB). A day or two ago, I received the reply pasted below. It is gratifying to learn that MOPAC to some extent validates the concerns which I have laid out in previous posts, and promises that in future t... »
This post turns from its predecessor’s focus on police priorities to police performance. For reasons that are unclear, the most up to date figures borough by borough on number of offences and related sanction detection rates (SDRs) are no longer widely circulated, but some careful searching has unearthed the table appended below. The series therein largely speak for themselves, and paint a rather ... »
Following on from my series about knife crime, this and the succeeding post look at wider aspects of policing in Waltham Forest. A sensible starting point is police priorities. Under Mayor Johnson, the focus was on the so called Mayor’s Office for Policing And Crime (MOPAC) Seven – violence with injury, robbery, burglary, vandalism (criminal damage), theft from the person, theft of motor vehicles,... »