Crime Falls In Cambridgeshire

19 May 2010, 07:00 | Updated: 19 May 2010, 16:46

The number of burglaries, robberies and vehicle crimes in Cambridgeshire fell by more than 20% during 2009/10, compared to the 12 months before.

New police performance figures show serious acquisitive crimes, which means all of the above incidents, dropped from 13,025 in 2008/09 to 10,388 in 2009/10.

That means 2,637 fewer of those types of crimes were reported to Cambridgeshire Police during the period.

Meanwhile, public satisfaction with the force's work is on the increase.

The new figures show 83.9 percent of people questioned are satisfied with their dealings with the force, compared to 81.2 percent during the previous survey.

Since 2002/03, overall crime in Cambridgeshire has dropped from 85,000 incidents a year to 60,000 reported offences.

The detection rate during that time has also improved, up from 13 percent to 27 percent.

Cambridgeshire's Chief Constable, Julie Spence, said: "I've said on many occasions that statistics count for very little so far as the public is concerned.

People simply want to know that we will turn up as quickly as possible when we're called, keep victims aware of what we are doing and provide details of the outcome.

However, it is useful from time to time to show that we are making steady progress in a number of areas, and that the service we provide is giving satisfaction to the vast majority of those who need to contact us.

When we do fail to deliver I'm the first to try to ensure that lessons are learned from our mistakes."

Chief Constable Julie Spence talks to Tom Horn.