Suffolk Constabulary has joined a nationwide campaign to make the public aware of the standards of service they can expect from their police.

The Justice Seen, Justice Done campaign sees newspaper, radio and television adverts making the public aware of the Policing Pledge.

The Pledge is a set of ten standards, which includes Suffolk Constabulary’s commitment for the amount of time spent on the beat, easy ways to contact Safer Neighbourhood Teams and clear response times to all calls and incidents.

The adverts, which have been launched this week, focus on two of the promises within the Pledge – that our Safer Neighbourhood Teams spend 80 percent of their time visibly working in your neighbourhood and that you can make an appointment to see your local police as a time that suits you within 48 hours about non-emergency problems.

The campaign follows the results of a new poll, which shows that:

• Over half the public think they would have to wait more than 48 huors for an appointment with a police officer to discuss a non-emergency matter;
• Only three percent of people think that their local police spend more than 75 percent of their time on the beat in their area; and
• 81 percent of people said they would find it useful to receive information, which provided the contact details for the local police and other crime and antisocial behaviour services in the area.
  

As well as the advertising, new leaflets detailing a range of information, from ‘who is responsible for tackling anti-social behaviour’ to ‘your rights’ and ‘what can you expect from the police locally’ is available. Safer Neighbourhood Teams across Suffolk will be handing the leaflets out over coming weeks and they will also be available from your local police station (week commencing 14^th December) or online at www.suffolk.police.uk

To access the leaflet and campaign posters, please click on the following links which open in a new window:

Policing Pledge Leaflet 429kb (pdf)

Policing Pledge Poster 1 (pdf)

Policing Pledge Poster 2 (pdf)

Temporary Assistant Chief Constable Stewart Gull commented: “The Suffolk Policing Pledge sets out the standards the public can expect from us – their local police service. Officers from our 30 Safer Neighbourhood Teams are pledging to spend 80 percent of their time on the beat and appointments can be made with people to enable them to meet their local officers as a time that is convenient to them. By meeting these standards we hope that residents across Suffolk will have greater confidence in the policing service in Suffolk, which in turn will encourage them to come forward to report crime and give evidence against criminals in court.”

The campaign also promotes a newly developed crime and justice area of the direct.gov website – www.direct.gov.uk/policingpledge - as a key way for people to access information about police, crime, justice and anti-social behaviour services, including details of their local Safer Neighbourhood Teams, crime maps, how to nominate areas to be cleaned up by offenders undertaking Community Payback and services for victims and witnesses. All this information can be accessed in one place by simply entering a postcode.