Lincolnshire Police having not reported 9,400 crimes correctly will not lead to a rethink on Lincolnshire County Council’s part-night streetlighting policy which was continued due to crime levels having not increased dramatically.
As reported in last week’s The Voice, the figure led to Her Majesty’s Inspectorate branding the force “inadequate”.
Several residents commented on our Facebook page with regards the incorrectly reported crimes and that part-night street-lighting policy has been continued on the basis the number of crimes have not risen since many lights were switched off between 12am and 6pm.
Phil de Camps wrote: “So it wasn’t the public’s perception that was wrong and the police figures right, it was exactly the opposite.”
Andrew Canham also commented: “Since turning the streetlights off has had “no significant change in crime figures”, but now we find that those figures are nearly 10K short of where they should have been.”
Lincolnshire County Council say that though it plans to review the crime figures annually, there remains no evidence to make a change now.
Coun Richard Davies, executive member for highways, said: “One of the recommendations put forward by the scrutiny committee was that crime figures continue to be reviewed on an annual basis.
“At this stage, we’ve seen no evidence, either from Lincolnshire Police or any other organisation or individual, to suggest that the streetlighting changes have made the county less safe.
“This supports the findings of the LANTERNS project, which examined the experiences of many local authorities and found no evidence that a reduction in streetlighting led to an increase in crime or road accidents.
“And given that the crimes left unrecorded by Lincolnshire Police included things like ‘malicious communications’,
I’m not convinced the force’s approach to data collection has somehow masked a surge in incidents caused by part-night lighting.
“However, we will continue to monitor the situation, and we’ll also be working to reassure people that, despite the scare stories, part-night lighting is safe.”
