Public Perceptions of Lancashire Constabulary: Re-examination and Insight Analysis of LPCC Commissioned Survey Data

Abstract

The statistical analysis of the SMSR data illustrated how there was a statistically significant
association between feelings of safety and confidence. This found those with more negative
views in terms of feelings of safety also had more negative views in relation to confidence,
and vice versa. This suggested that there were a large proportion of respondents who
reported low levels of both safety and confidence.

Combining the findings across the three thematic areas of feelings of safety, the majority of
the sample reported feeling safe (84%). From modelling demographics, gender initially
appeared to be associated with feelings of safety, whereby males were less likely to report
feeling unsafe. However, this was superseded by disability and victimisation when they
entered into the modelling. Overall, those who were disabled were roughly twice as likely to
report feeling unsafe, and those who were victimised in the last year were four and a half
times more likely to report feeling unsafe. Furthermore, those feeling unsafe were
significantly more likely to live in Blackpool and Hyndburn.

With regards to confidence, majority of the sample also had high levels of confidence in
Lancashire Constabulary (82%). Those who did not feel confident were significantly more
likely to be elderly, as those aged 55-74 were three times more likely to report a lack of
confidence, and those who had been victimised in the last year, who were two time more
likely to report a lack of confidence. Furthermore, respondents from Rossendale were
significantly more likely to report low levels of confidence.

The qualitative analysis illustrated that a proportion of the neutral/negative views was due to
the respondent not knowing enough about the police and therefore not feeling informed
enough to report feeling ‘safe’ and ‘confident’. However, there was an array of other reasons
why individuals felt low levels of safety and confidence, which mainly appeared to relate to
police visibility and accessibility, as well as engagement and police response.

In regard to police response, a number of participants explained how they felt the police
response could be quicker, more compassionate and involve physical response. These child
themes appeared to provide context into the modelling that illustrated how victims reported
lower levels of safety and confidence, with all of the findings about victimisation being
consistent with previous research using the Crime Survey of England and Wales (Bradford &
Myhill, 2015).

In addressing more general concerns around police visibility, it is argued that this is often
requested by the public in similar surveys (Birdsall, 2019) as the public consider visible foot
patrols as a ‘signal’ (Inness et al., 2009) of control and order in their community (Bradford &
Myhill, 2015). As such, care must be taken in improving ‘visibility’ as Salmi et al., (2000) argue
that this is different to overall police ‘image’. Therefore, whilst social media outputs and ‘In
the Know’ may be effective means of highlighting the work of local police, it may only be
bolstering a positive policing image. As such, thought should be given on how to increase foot
patrol visibility, or nudging (Roach et al., 2020) the public into seeing more police visibility to
address lower confidence levels related to this reason. This should be done with the core aim
of developing strong community relationships (Salmi et al., 2000).

Further work could be done to understand respondents’ frustrations in reporting crimes,
establish how to improve the crime reporting experience, and gauge common expectations
when a member of the public reports things to the police.

In addition, methodological improvements to the survey could also be considered to collect
more consistent and detailed data relating to safety and confidence in order to provide better
explanation of respondents views into safety and confidence.

However, all of the above work should be considered in the context of overall high safety and
high confidence levels, with a large proportion of negative views being related to the
respondents not knowing about policing in their local areas.