West Midlands Police is “failing victims” and not recording more than 16,600 violent crimes each year, watchdog has said.
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The force was rated inadequate by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services. Only 78.2% of violent crime and 89.2% of sexual offences were recorded and the force said it had made “substantial progress”.
About three-quarters of police forces around the country have already been inspected and of those, two-thirds were rated as either “inadequate” or “requiring improvement”. The report said that the recording rate by one of the biggest forces in the country remained “unacceptable and must be urgently addressed”.
“The recording rates for violent crime and sexual offences remain a cause of concern,” it said.
“Too often the force is still failing victims of crime, including domestic abuse victims.”
In 2017 the same watchdog said five out of six reported crimes were recorded by West Midlands Police but 28,800 each year were not. It was re-examined for violent crime and sexual offences in 2018, with inspectors auditing a sample of reports from 1 March to 31 May. Inspectors were not able to look at other types of crime because the force was updating its systems.
Out of the 2,176 reported crimes audited 470 related to domestic abuse; only 354 of these were recorded. Figures show that 116 were not recorded including 95 offences classed as violent such as common assaults, ABH, harassment and malicious communications.
The report said: “We found several examples of attending officers letting down victims by simply not believing them.
“Some incident logs contained closing comments that were completely different to the initial call and recorded no crime, without an adequate explanation.”
It is estimated that more than 16,6000 violent crimes are failed to be record when they have been reported each year.
Deputy Chief Constable Louisa Rolfe, from the force, said: “It is frustrating that, despite substantial progress, our grading has remained as inadequate.”
30 forced were reported as inadequate but Leicestershire was the worst. Whilst there were improvements in 2018, the watchdog found the overall rating recording rate and the rates for violent crime and sexual offences were too low.
HMICFRS said Leicestershire’s standards had become worse; among 49 victims who should have been told a crime had been cancelled, 15 were not informed.
Leicestershire Chief Constable Simon Cole said: “Crime recording is a complex issue and this inspection looks at our technical compliance with a national crime recording system – something which is focused on numbers, categories, how crimes are manually logged on systems and then audited.”
HM Inspector of Constabulary Zoë Billingham said:
“I was pleased to see that Leicestershire Police has made renewed efforts to do better at recording crimes reported to it. The force is committed to learning from its mistakes and has taken steps to address some of the problems we found in our last inspection. I am confident that the force is getting back on track and I am optimistic that further improvements will follow in the coming months.
“Leicestershire Police has recognised its old processes weren’t fit for purpose and has set up a new dedicated crime bureau. It’s still early days, but we found that the force has made great strides in improving how quickly it records crimes reported to it, with the vast majority recording within 24 hours. This means that victims of crime are getting better service from their local force, and have earlier access to vital victim support charities, like Leicestershire’s Victim First.
“However, I still found evidence that call handlers, response officers and supervisors are uncertain about when they need to record certain types of crime. Like other forces, officers at Leicestershire often have problems identifying more complicated crimes like malicious communications and harassment.
“I do recognise that there has been progress since our last inspection. The force has rolled out a crime recording training programme, and I welcome the introduction of better internal auditing processes. Individual officers will get much better feedback to help them understand where they’re going wrong and how to do better. But I remain concerned that there is some misunderstanding of the Home Office recording rules.
“It is a credit to the force’s leadership that Leicestershire Police has carried out four of the seven recommendations we made in our last report. The force is in a good position to pick up the pace and finish the job its started, so we can be sure that every reported offence will be recorded. I look forward to working closely with Leicestershire Police to make this happen.”
