Thames Valley Police promoting community engagement with policing scheme
Police Now focuses on Neighbourhood Policing and trust in officers
Thames Valley Police have been engaging in a community focused policing scheme.
Police now is a scheme focused on recruiting, developing and inspiring officers through working with communities.
Officers on Police Now's programmes develop skills in leadership and problem-solving. They share a commitment to public service, fighting crime and inspiring social change alongside their colleagues.
Speaking of her role as a neighbourhood officer PC Abhi Bajwa, of Thames Valley Police, said:
"The graduate scheme is aimed towards making a difference in your community, so peoples trust in the police, dealing with a problematic person or issue.
"So that is your task for the two years, so help the community. You're engaging with the public every day, you are the face of the police for them.
"An officer who can relate to community members understands the concerns or difficulties they face.
"That officer is able to use an approach or introduce initiatives that from their own understanding and experiences would make an impact in reducing the types of crimes the community is facing."
The leadership element of the programme comes from the individual, they are tasked with using their initiative to introduce, develop or support ideas to help the local community/force.
For PC Bajwa that involved dealing with a member of the public who had been causing anti-social disturbances in High Wycombe for 20 years.
This was impacting the locals, some had even moved away because of the incidents and the police who were using resources to respond to these incidents regularly.
Most importantly for PC Bajwa the communities trust in the police had suffered as they had been unable to prevent the individual from offending again.
PC Abhi Bajwa began gathering evidence to seek a civil injunction:
"The issues we were having as a force were that with the incidents of anti social behaviour there wasn't enough evidence or the victims didn't want to go forward with prosecution.
"They were getting more extreme though with threats of violence, racism, aggressive behaviour to the point some people were moving out of the area because they couldn't deal with it.
"I started to engage with the community on what they needed and how we could help them and they had clearly lost trust in us.
"I started asking around and I came to know about civil injunctions and decided this would be suitable for the individual. I spoke to local people, including the individuals family who were having serious issues too.
"I was able to take this through to court and the individual was banned from a large area, and breaches of the injunction meant the individual could go to jail.
"This has helped police resources as we arent repeatedly dealing with this individual but also it really improved the relationship with the community which is amazing to see."
PC Bajwa says the emphasis Police Now place on the community and having a good relationship with them is key to the success of the scheme and are incredibly beneficial for the police force country wide.
Police Now has recruited a total of 1,830 officers across 33 forces in the UK, including Thames Valley Police.
Chief Constable John Campbell has partnered with Police Now for the past five years, with 45 police constables and 11 detective constables joining the force via this route.