Boston policing plan (HTML)

This is a plain text, HTML version of the Boston policing plan. You can download the PDF version of the plan at the bottom of this page.

Foreword

The Borough of Boston has a diverse community and a rich heritage. Boston, with a population of circa. 46000 people is the second largest conurbation in the Lincolnshire policing area. It’s an energetic market town with numerous historic buildings throughout. The Borough of Boston consists of the town of Boston plus 18 other parishes each represented by a parish council. The port of Boston serves much of the country, shipping goods into and out of the UK, grain in particular. The borough borders the districts of East Lindsey and South Holland. With one of the most diverse communities in Lincolnshire, Boston welcomes people of different nationalities to carry out all sorts of work, but particularly agricultural, on the vast expanse of farmland in south Lincolnshire.

With such a diverse community, we are aware of how this impacts the demands on policing and our public service partners. The Neighbourhood Policing Plan will help us target our resources to protect communities, who will have a real say in our local policing priorities. We will use an evidence-based approach, examining police and partner data to identify needs and a problem-solving approach to respond to them. Our resources will be targeted towards those areas of high harm and vulnerability.

The Neighbourhood Policing Team (NPT) operates from Boston Police Station covering the borough. We work alongside our 24/7 response policing teams who provide the all important emergency response function. We also have specialist support teams such as the Rural Crime Action Team and the Roads Policing Unit.

We have a very close working relationship with Boston Borough Council and other partners, tackling antisocial behaviour and crime collectively. The NPT and the council have initiated Operation Plotting which aims to reduce crime and anti-social behaviour and the fear of crime. The Neighbourhood Policing Team and the council recently placed joint bids for additional funding and were awarded just over £300k which will see additional staff and interventions implemented to tackle ASB and crime. Two additional community wardens, working for the council, will be employed in the town centre as result of Operation Plotting. We also work very closely with the University of Lincoln who are working with the community to set up residents’ groups and conduct focus groups.

Over the last year the local NPT have been undertaking crime hotspot patrols and have reduced ASB linked to street drinking by 50% in 2023 compared to previous years. The team will continue to focus on this as an area of need and are aiming to reduce incidents of this nature even further.

Our officers work incredibly hard throughout the year, and I am proud to be part of such a fantastic team of people. By continuing to work in partnership with other agencies, I am confident that we can make the Borough of Boston the safest possible place for people to live, work and visit.

T/Inspector Ian Cotton
Neighbourhood Policing – Boston

Our vision

Working together to make the county the safest place to live, work and visit.

Our strategy

In line with the force priorities there are three areas that underpin our neighbourhood policing plan 2024.

Stop crime and ASB

We will do our utmost to prevent harm before it happens and lessen the impact when it does.

Protect people from harm

We will work with the community to deliver a series of initiatives to make them feel safe and protect them from harm.

Help those in need

We will work with our partners to identify the most vulnerable in our community, offering a high standard of care. Ensuring we have the right resources in the right place at the right time.

How we will deliver this

We will engage

We will be in the right place at the right time, in the heart of our communities.

We will listen

We will listen to the views of all our communities whether residential or transient. Ensuring the local policing approach is adaptable and aligned to their needs.

We will inform

We will communicate throughout the year using face-to-face engagements and across a number of online platforms.

We will work together

We will seek out opportunities to work with our partners and offer community participation through our interactions and initiatives.

Stop crime and ASB

We will do our utmost to prevent harm before it happens and lessen the impact when it does.

Tackling street drinking

We are aware that residents are worried about antisocial behaviour linked to street drinking and the associated crime that it brings to the town centre. We have taken steps to address this in the last 12 months by conducting focused patrols in hotspot areas and working with partners to support those who need help to end addiction. Over the last year Boston NPT has increased enforcement of the Public Space Protection Order and has seen a year-on-year decrease of 50% in ASB linked to street drinking. We will continue the work to reduce alcohol-related ASB in Boston.

Operation Plotting

Operation Plotting was introduced to tackle ASB, crime and reduce the fear of crime. The operation focuses on long term issues such as environmental factors that contribute to crime and ASB, repeat offenders and protecting the vulnerable. The operation also tackles businesses who trade in illicit products, working with Lincolnshire Trading Standards, (such as some vapes, cigarettes) creating unfair advantages over legitimate businesses. By using an evidence-based approach Boston Police will undertake hotspot patrols to help prevent ASB and criminal activity from occurring.

Dispersal orders

A dispersal order gives police officers and police community support officers powers to direct people they suspect are causing or likely to cause crime, nuisance, or anti-social behaviour to members of the public to leave a designated area and not return for up to 48 hours. Under the legislation, officers also have the power to seize any item used in the commission of anti-social behaviour. If a person who has previously been directed to leave the dispersal area returns, an offence would be committed, and they could be arrested. Dispersal orders are an effective tool for dealing with incidents linked to night-time economy and anti-social behaviour.

Prolific shop theft

Boston has a small number of prolific shoplifters; they are responsible for a large percentage of shop thefts in the town. This theft impacts local businesses, with many smaller and independent stores struggling to cover this cost. By focusing efforts on prolific shop theft, research has shown this will also reduce other offences such as burglary and vehicle theft. The Neighbourhood Policing Team will seek Criminal Behaviour Orders for prolific shoplifters. These orders give the courts some significant sentencing powers should they be breached.

School engagement

We will foster close working relationships with primary schools, secondary schools and colleges within the area. In doing so we will seek to educate – in partnership with Lincolnshire Police’s youth engagement officers and the crime prevention team – and safeguard those who are the next generation. We will continue to deliver the Mini Police programme in areas identified to have the highest risk and work with established partnerships in settings such as MACE (Multi Agency Child Exploitation) to prevent harm to those who are subject to, or at risk of, exploitation. We will also work with schools in Operation Absence with truancy patrols, identifying students absent and returning them to school.

Operation Galileo

This operation focuses on the enforcement and prevention of rural crime involving trespassing on private land and pursuit of animals in what is a cruel and brutal manner. The impact of this is not simply the behaviours of those who seek to profit from illegal activities but also the wider consequences of damage to farmland and intimidation aimed towards those hard-working farming communities whose livelihoods are impacted by this. We will continue to work towards disrupting this activity with the Rural Crime Action Team (RCAT). We will support the RCAT to disrupt and target coursing and build the intelligence picture behind those who seek to continue their offending behaviour.

Protect from harm

We will work with the community to deliver a series of initiatives to make them feel safe and protect them from harm.

Road safety/Fatal 5

Throughout the year resources will work alongside specialist officers (such as the Roads Policing Unit) with partners such as the Lincolnshire Road Safety Partnership to make our roads safer, tackling the areas that fall under the fatal 5, alongside other antisocial behaviour on our roads. Local policing teams will complement responses to force-wide operations on a local level such as the targeting of drink/drug drivers on our roads. We will seek to evidence base this response, requesting where appropriate speed surveys to obtain data that will allow officers to focus their time where most needed. Local community speed watch will be promoted to encourage the public to become involved in prevention, partners will be consulted and the public signposted where other agencies can best offer solutions to create and implement initiatives that make our roads a safer place.

Joint enforcement activities

We will continue with joint enforcement at premises that seek to sell products to the wider pubic that are not fit for human consumption. This includes illegal tobacco, vapes and alcohol. Our ‘Clear, Hold, Build’ strategy will be carried out in partnership with the Police licencing team as well as external partners such as Lincolnshire Trading Standards and Home Office Immigration. By targeting this, we seek to impact on wider criminality, antisocial behaviour, safeguard children most vulnerable and prevent negative impacts on health from consumption of unsafe products. Joint working allows a variety of enforcement options but also protects those who are vulnerable to exploitation.

Tackling illegal substances

By developing intelligence against organised groups who utilise premises to grow and subsequently supply illegal substances we will seek to disrupt criminality in the area. Not only is there a risk to the wider community from use of said substances but also the threat around potential faulty electricals and power bypasses creating a fire hazard to said and surrounding properties. We will seek to target and disrupt this behaviour. During any investigation we will also seek to use any monies seized/recovered to invest back into the local community using the Proceeds of Crime Act.

Violence against women and girls (VAWG)

VAWG covers multiple crimes with the common theme being they target women and girls. We will work with other policing teams to ensure such crimes are robustly dealt with and work with partners to ensure such behaviours are shown not be acceptable. We will work with external partners including Crime Stoppers to promote and participate in local/national campaigns to ensure that those who may be victim of criminality from all communities and backgrounds have the confidence to speak out and report matters to the police.

Operation Vicinity

Operation Vicinity coordinates our response and investigations into reports of drink spiking in Lincolnshire. We treat every report of spiking incredibly seriously and, working with key partners in health, we ensure victims are fully supported throughout the medical and investigation stages. We work closely with bars, clubs and partners to ensure a safe night-time environment throughout the Boston district, preventing such offences from taking place. Numbers of offences reported in Boston are relatively low. We know that some incidents may go unreported, and we urge anyone who suspects they may have been spiked to call us. One incident of this abhorrent crime is one incident too many. We believe that you should not have to ‘be vigilant’ when you are socialising in the local community, but there are steps you can take: look out for each other, don’t leave your drinks, don’t accept drinks offered by people you don’t know or trust.

Help those in need

We will work with our partners to identify the most vulnerable in our community, offering a high standard of care. Ensuring
we have the right resources in the right place at the right time.

Vulnerable repeat callers

We will work with partner agencies to support those who are repeat callers to police, repeat victims of crime or otherwise vulnerable. This will include those who are at risk of exploitation for example through ‘county lines’ and those whose mental health crises regularly require police intervention. We will seek the full range of support available from other agencies and will use the criminal justice system alongside other avenues of support.

Public engagements

Our team will be accessible to all in a variety of ways. From traditional meet and greet surgeries in areas of high population and footfall to online forums, polls and live chat. Through this engagement we will seek views of our community on where they believe their local police should be directing resources. We will seek to offer crime prevention advice and links to our partner agencies. We will endeavour to engage those seldom heard communities by seeking key individuals who can represent them, giving them a voice in the setting of the local policing priorities. Our engagements will be advertised in advance in most cases but may also be ‘pop-up’ when resourcing allows. We will include the community in our activity through social media. We will seek to share our enforcement action and the results so we can build on the established trust we have within the Boston borough community. That activity will be directed by our community, and we will show that we are working for them.

Operation Signature

This is the force’s campaign to identify and support vulnerable victims of fraud in Lincolnshire. In partnership with the force’s crime prevention department, we will work to provide advice and signposting to those who are targets victims of fraud. Those who are victim of this crime type are often isolated and unable to acknowledge they are victims. We will work on prevention and signposting to partners to ensure victims have suitable onwards support to prevent them being continually targeted by those who would seek to exploit their vulnerabilities.

Operation Fortify

We will seek out and protect those who are being exploited by county lines drugs gangs, making it difficult for the lines to be set up and stay within our community. Enforcement against those involved in the gang and partnership support for those being ‘cuckooed’ (where an address is taken over so a base for dealing can be established) will help tackle this scourge on our market towns.

Working in partnership with

• Lincolnshire Police and Crime Commissioner
• South and East Lincolnshire Community Safety Partnership
• Police Federation
• Boston Borough Council
• what3words
• Spike Aware UK
• Oscar Kilo
• Home Office UK Border Agency
• University of Lincoln
• Lincolnshire Resilience Forums
• Just Lincolnshire
• Lincolnshire County Council