Analysis of the 'Let's Talk Policing' Survey 2019

Abstract

Recent assessments, inspections and national statistics illustrate how policing has reduced
and stabilised crime rates (apart from an overall rise in fraud offences) over the last few
decades (ONS, 2020). Yet, this is often not reflected in the public’s views and concerns, since
they are often not aware of police data or day-to-day policing activities (Bradford & Myhill,
2015). Taking this phenomena into account, dialogue with the public has become more
important than ever due to the publicity surrounding police austerity and the decline of police
budgets in the UK (Brains & Owens, 2015). This would subsequently signal issues in police
effectiveness to the public, resulting in reduced levels of confidence and feelings of safety
(Sindall & Sturgis, 2013). This void between the public’s understanding of police priorities and
objective crimes rates has previously been termed the ‘reassurance gap’ (Herrington & Millie,
2006), whereby forces need to carefully balance reassurance policing alongside serious crime
related issues. It is important that this engagement takes place since the public have also
previously stated that they want an open dialogue with the police to understand and
contribute towards police priorities (Casey, 2008).
The ‘Let’s Talk Policing’ survey is a prime example of the effort police agencies are taking to
understand their public. It aimed to collect views of local residents regarding their police
force, covering key topics such as safety, confidence, contact, policing priorities and funding.
As the survey collected a large amount of quantitative and qualitative data, the Policing
department of the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) was approached to provide
analytical support. Subsequently, this report aimed to provide analysis into three key
questions using a mixed methods approach. It concerns multivariate modelling of who would
be willing to pay more council tax for policing based upon other questions within the survey,
as well as a thematic analysis of two open-ended questions pertaining to policing issues in the
local area and what the police are doing well or could do better. This analysis was conducted
on a sample of 2,815 survey responses which met the inclusion criteria of the analysis
(reduced from 3,256).
With regards to the quantitative analysis, statistical modelling found that the variables which
illustrated a strong statistical relationship with agreement to pay council tax were: stating
that roads policing was a medium or high priority (p < .001); stating that the patrolling of low
crime areas was a low priority (p < .001); the respondent not disclosing their ethnicity (p <
.001); and the respondent not disclosing their victimisation, or reported not being a victim of
crime (p < .001).
Across the 2,815 respondents, seven themes were developed around issues within the
respondents’ area. The themes covered a variety of crime types and policing issues within the
respondents’ local area, including: 1) anti-social behaviour; 2) theft; 3) vehicle issues
(excluding theft); 4) drugs; 5) police presence; 6) petty crime; and 7) rural crime. The thematic
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analysis that focused on the things Lancashire Police do well or could do better resulted in
the development of five core themes. These themes covered: 1) more police visibility; 2)
crime reporting and response; 3) police budget; 4) police engagement; and 5) general opinion.
The results uncovered core themes that were important to the sample of respondents,
whereby several findings appeared consistent with previous surveying of a Lancashire
population (BMG Research, 2019; Birdsall, et al., 2015; Robinson, et al., 2015). Such issues
included requests for increased police visibility and greater communication, as well as the
police tackling local key issues such as anti-social behaviour, theft and drugs. However, there
were some findings that were not apparent within the previous surveys, such as the
importance of roads policing, as well as the mention of rural crime.
Overall, whilst it is helpful to get such feedback from the public to aid with engagement and
make them feel that they have a say in the way their force is run (Casey, 2008), the research
demonstrated that their wants can sometimes be contradictory in nature, insensitive to force
priorities, or involve unsupported assumptions (Kelling, et al., 2003). Therefore, Lancashire
Police may be best placed to focus their priorities on objective strategies that are evidenced
in reducing crime and disorder, whilst understanding how to make such policing activity more
visible. Furthermore, consideration should also be placed into understanding how to
practically implement findings from the ‘Let’s Talk Policing’ survey, whereby respondents’
wants could be enacted to address the reassurance gap (Herrington & Millie, 2006) through
measures that are more targeted than those highlighted by the public themselves. An
example of this could be to specifically target hotspots of citizen identified crime issues with
physical police patrols, and ensuring that this police activity is heavily advertised to citizens
within the local area.