A police scheme to target repetitive incidents of crime has been hailed a success by senior officers.
The incident reduction programme, piloted in the Witham section of Braintree police division, has led to a significant fall in the number of incidents officers have had to attend to, according to Insp Alan Cotgrove, head of Witham police.
He was speaking at a meeting of the police and community consultative group, with Witham residents and community leaders, on Tuesday.
Dubbed "Five Strikes and You're Out", the programme involves a special report being compiled if officers are called out to attend to the same location, premises or individual five times or more in any three-month period.
An officer will then speak to those involved and investigate ways of preventing the problem recurring.
Mr Cotgrove said between April 1 and August 31, police in Witham section attended 5,246 incidents down from 5,740 the previous year before the scheme came into operation.
Published Thursday October 17, 2002
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