Agenda item

Hate Crimes Unit and Stop and Search

On behalf of the Northants Police, Luisa Jepson and Nick Stephens attended.

Luisa updated on changes to staffing within the Hate crimes unit which have continued to date. It was noted that Detective Inspector Helen Knight has this week come into post in the Unit. Three new staff should join in May/June time.

Luisa said the Police are unsure what this forum would want as information and engagement with the Hate Crimes Unit. She suggested that there are statistics provided to hate incident review meetings which might be useful and could be shared.

Nick Stephens introduced himself as community engagement officer for the Police. He also wanted to know what the forum would find helpful in terms of his work.

It was noted that the unusually poor attendance at the particular meeting made it difficult to discuss needs in detail. It was also noted that attendance has normally filled the meeting rooms with people from lots of communities and organisations attending. It was believed that duplication of items in tonight’s agenda, which had happened for various reasons, was likely to have led to some people deciding not to attend.

It was also noted that the forum has a large circulation network with over 100 regular followers on its Facebook page where events, news and opportunities are shared day to day, an email network and the mailing list for these meetings too, which includes former members of the Community Reference Group.

With regard to engagement it was noted that the forum does operate a number of ways of holding meetings. These can include closed groups for discussing specific issues and sensitive information. They also include attending events and open meetings at the Guildhall. The forum is happy to work with organisations to look at ways of meeting their needs as to how engagement takes place.

Nick referred to the fact that tonight there is not much attendance tonight and that with low turnout it would be difficult to get staff to attend or engage with the forum, especially senior staff.

Agreed: Co-Chairs and Lindsey Ambrose to look at meeting with Detective Inspector Helen Knight

With regard to the brought forward request for stop and search information, Nick Stephens said he was the messenger and could email statistics for circulation but did not feel able to give a detailed presentation or answer any questions about them. He apologised that he had not personally been made aware of the particular information about disproportionate stop and search which the forum had requested so he could not provide any such information. Nick suggested he would forward the information he had to Lindsey Ambrose to forward to the forum and then people might contact Lindsey for her to forward questions and queries by email to him to pass on to appropriate officers to answer and reply to him for him to reply to Lindsey who in turn would then pass on the answers to the forum.

In response Morcea Walker said she was concerned about people passing information through lots and lots of people – it’s being too complicated to communicate effectively. She highlighted that it was good to have Keith attend as an expert on his area so people didn’t have to pass information through lots of people but could simply talk directly taking just a few minutes. Morcea’s preference would be to periodically have an Agenda item with attendance by someone who could go through the figures and ask what is that about as Sgt Paul Colhoun used to do. Morcea felt this was better for building relationships and mutual understandings, rather than have messengers unable to speak about things or emailing things around to people to try to make sense of on their own. Morcea also raised concerned that it might be risky to rely on email communication as emails could go anywhere and this might not be helpful.

Anjona said she agreed with Morcea that it has seemed in recent months that the Police have kept changing things without consultation, while other public bodies have been struggling to continue engaging with communities rather than relying on one-off events. She said that this made it a difficult time to form constructive, critical relationships which would be valuable to tackle hate crime. There was discussion that older people in the community who have done a lot of work with councils and the Police remember how things used to be. When BME communities were smaller than now, there was more focus on doing that engagement with local government leading and Police piggybacking on to it –  which was then understood to be good for both local government and the Police. Senior people would appear at meetings and the community valued this.

Anjona said forums meetings have wanted different info at different times. In recent months, some more requests have been made than in the past via the forum as a result of loss of other engagement and ways things could be dealt with previously. Some engagement with forums could be bypassed by restoring direct engagement with community e.g. NREC gets very little direct contact from the Police though it considers itself a hate crime specialist and refers people to the Police.

Anjona referred to cold case review happening in other parts of the country as a means of building community confidence. These are not minority agendas but are mainstream agendas for building confidence in the community. These happen in other counties. These recognise people may not be happy to go straight to the Police but will engage with community organisations and community networks.

In terms of stop and search for example, Northants had been fourth worst in the country – that was quite shocking to Anjona. The new Chief Constable came from an area where the disproportionality was less and there was higher community confidence and he wanted to push that locally in Northants.

Burglaries: Meeting Saturday 21 April 2012 from 12 noon at Northampton Guildhall

Nick Stephens said the Police were aware of some concerns among some Asian communities about thefts of gold and cash from their homes and shops. There is a rumour that Eastern European gangs are responsible. Police aware some Eastern European people are involved in some crimes like this, but have no evidence that this is targeting of Asian communities exclusively or mostly by Eastern European. But there is a general perception that Asian families tend to keep a lot of gold at home. A meeting was due to be held to discuss this on Saturday 21 April 2012 from 12 noon in the Godwin Room at Northampton Guildhall.

Northants Police Force Open Day is Sat 12 May 11am – 4pm at Police HQ

This would include helicopters, dogs, Police vehicles and a community engagement stand. Free event. All welcome.

Olympic Torch Relay 2 July

This would be coming through town including Beckets Park. Morcea reported disappointment route has changed no longer including schools.

Euro 2012

Nick Stephens said there was potential for celebrations and tensions in community in relation to this event.

Northants County Council: Developing Local Communities Commission

Anjona said that NREC been meeting with North Northants groups interested in making a legal challenge to the Equality Impact Assessment on this. Any Northampton groups interested in finding out more or getting involved should please contact Anjona Roy at NREC tel: 01604 40080 or email: info@northamptonshirerec.org.uk

NREC

Free training for voluntary sector organisation was coming up on 24 April 2012. Spaces still available. This is the first of a series of workshops to help community organisations strengthen their relationships with public sector organisations. For more information please contact Anjona Roy at NREC tel: 01604 40080 or email: info@northamptonshirerec.org.uk

Rainbow Bridge Festival

There would be a fundraising Gig on 28 April at Thomas A Beckett public house in Northampton. Tickets £8 with all profit going towards funding for the 2013 Rainbow Bridge Festival. For more information people should contact Sean Silver. Email: sts34@btinternet.com or tel/text: 07912 480 537.

Zimwomen Association – Africa Day celebrations
Africa Day celebrations - 25 May 2012 7.30pm at Marriott Hotel, Northampton. These were due to include speakers, fashion show, performances, poets, exhibitions, music, raffle, 3 course African meal. Tickets £25. Dress code African attire or formal.

For more information and to book a place people should contact Rutendo tel/text: 07951 588 733 or the Zimwomen Office tel: 01604 779 008 or email: zimwomennorthampton@ymail.com .