LONDON CRIME PASSING

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 28 June 1935, Page 8

LONDON CRIME PASSING

WARFARE IS TOO BITTER NEW TYPE OF POLICEMAN NEW DRIVE LAUNCHED. (Our Own Correspondent —By Air Mail) . LONDON, June 8. To-day, at a time when there is less crime in London than ever before, Scotland Yard is launching a new drive against the criminal. Lord Trenchard, slowly and surely, is stamping out crime in London. The secret of his success is that he has never given criminals a change of settling down to changed conditions. Before they have had an opportunity to alter their tactics to suit the new po.ice methods another reform has been introduced to bewilder them.

The new drive is aimed to suppress housebreaking, burglary, smash-and-grab raids, petty thefts, and robberies in which motor-cars are used. The main points in the latest proposals are : More plain-clothes policemen to flood crime-prevalent areas. More wireless cars. More co-operation between uniform and 0.1. D. branches. Introduction of a system whereby the policeman knows all that happens cxn his beat, even when he is off duty. No longer will he rely on the coffee-stall keeper or the butcher’s boy to tell him what- happened while he was away. Alen in the uniform branch are being asked to volunteer for plain-clothes duty. In each division the crime chief, an officer of the rank of chief inspector, will be primarily responsible for keeping up to date a survey of the general crime position in his area. If he has not sufficient men of his own division to deal with the situation he will b© able to have men drafted from other districts without being hindered by red tape, as formerly.