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Many of the statistics outlined above are relevant for this section. Additionally the multi-agency operation described earlier (on page 1) resulted in over 170 arrests over a five-week period for a range of offences from possession of drugs, robbery, and theft.

In the year 2001/2 British Transport Police reported the following crimes for the Merseyside Area:

• 4,553 total crimes, a decrease of 9% from the previous year
• 04 acts of violence against the person, a 4% increase from the previous year
• 54 acts of robbery, a 23% increase from the previous year
• 98 acts of criminal damage, an 81% increase from the previous year

The action planning seminars and consultation process referred to on page 2 also highlighted the following problems:

• Smoking on buses including smoking of cannabis
• Assaults on staff and passengers including problems with enforcement of revenue protection where more incidents of physical and verbal assault on revenue protection officers are being seen
• Links between ticketless travel and offenders committing other offences
• Anti-social behaviour including the dropping of litter
• Criminal damage
• Many of the locations where problems are located on the public transport network will also be areas experiencing problems in the wider environment such as street crime
• Feeling there is insufficient deterrent for offenders
• Feeling many problems are caused by a lack of respect for wider environment and society in general
• Lack of understanding of some transport staff and other passengers towards elderly, disabled and minority ethnic passengers

Strategic Aims

• Reduced levels of crime and disorder once reporting system fully implemented
• Where operations and campaigns are undertaken crime levels will be reduced
• More offenders will receive appropriate sentences
• Transport staff will feel safer undertaking their duties

Possible Actions

• Specific responses will be intelligence led so those periods of time and locations of incidents of crime and disorder can be tackled with appropriate responses. This will include tackling problems around Mischief Night
• Developing a sustained multi-agency enforcement team
• Developing use of reparation schemes for young offenders and developing links to wider Youth Offending Teams preventive work
• Ensure new and existent Neighbourhood Wardens schemes are aware of problems around public transport and, where appropriate, are encouraged to use public transport and report damage
• Explore use of specific Transport Wardens
• Encourage community to be more self-policing including encouraging reporting of incidents and community education
• Developing and maintaining briefings for magistrates on true nature of incidents on public transport network and their impacts