Chelmsford's new detective inspector has vowed to purge the town of criminals through a hard-line proactive attitude to crime.
DI Ewen Wilson has launched a major crackdown on known criminals, including drug dealers, thieves and burglars, pledging to arrest them for any offences that will keep them off the streets.
Warning criminals to give up and get out of town, he said that this proactive approach to crime was the way forward for Chelmsford.
"We have a new vision for the way we are going to deal with crime in Chelmsford," he said.
"We have a lot of young, keen officers chomping at the bit to turn away from the traditional reactive method and to actually start targeting known criminals and taking them off the streets, therefore hopefully preventing crimes being committed.
"I want these criminals either off the streets or out of Chelmsford. Basically, if we can get a burglar off the streets for anything, such as driving while disqualified, we will"
DI Wilson said that many crimes such as theft and burglary were linked to drug taking, so drug dealers had been their latest target.
"We have started to target the drug dealers themselves," he said.
"In Chelmsford division, we have had a huge success with taking out a lot of class A drug dealers. We know for a fact that most of the local addicts are now having to go up to London to get drugs."
Published Friday, January 31, 2003
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