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‘We’re winning war on drugs,’ – crime chief
THE police and the Town Hall have failed to meet a three-year pledge to cut drug dealing in Camden Town by a third, but significant falls in robberies and thefts show that the battle is being won, the council’s crime chief has claimed.
Figures released this week show that a central aim of the police and the Lib Dem and Conservative administration, of slashing aggressive dealing in Camden Town’s “frontline”, had been missed despite a combination of the heaviest visible and covert policing the area has seen.
Last year, 1,174 drug deals were captured by the network of 19 CCTV cameras covering Camden Town – a fall of 20 per cent from 2005/06, but short of the 30 per cent target.
Overall crime in Camden Town actually rose 1 per cent on the previous year.
But reductions of more than a quarter in the number of robberies, burglaries and car break-ins showed that the authorities were right to press on with their campaign, according to former borough commander and now Town Hall crime czar, Tony Brooks.
He said: “There has been a sharp fall in drug dealing in the last six or seven months as a result of police activity in Camden Town, and the figures show a distortion because we are recording far more deals than we would have done in 2005 – we’ve got better recording and identification arrangements now.”
Mr Brooks added: “When you look at the crime figures and see the amount that goes on in Camden Town, you would still make that the focus because it is still higher than other areas.
“There will be no reduction of resources in Camden Town, and if there ever is, it will be because the level of crime is higher in other parts of the borough.” |
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