What does a Police and Crime Commissioner do?
Enabling the police to carry out their core business of protecting the public and reducing crime – whilst at the same time balancing people’s expectations of what they want from the police – would be a reasonable if simplified explanation.
The strategy for achieving this is called the Police and Crime Plan and it is the commissioner’s job to produce it. The plan must take into account operational policing – which is the Chief Constable’s day-to day responsibility – as well as what might be described as routine policing in the community.
What makes Martin Surl’s Police and Crime Plan for Gloucestershire different – some have described it as unique – is the significant contribution from volunteers and members of the general public. The plan itself is divided into six sections or priorities. Half of those priorities are headed by community representatives rather than police officers.
Here is the first of six short films that illustrate just a handful of the hundreds of schemes operating under those priorities, which are partially financed through the Commissioner’s Fund and run by ordinary people who all want to make a difference to the communities in which they live.
Accessibility and Accountability
…is aimed at giving people better access to the criminal justice system – especially victims of crime. This is an example of a process called Restorative Justice:
