Page 108 - Once a copper 10 03 2020

wells and to get to the point where I would know my area and its occupants
better than anyone else on the sub division.

Unlike a few that I would encounter, I wasn’t one of those officers who shied
away from driving around in police cars, dealing with the varied incidents
that cropped up during a shift. I enjoyed that side of it but felt that it would
take an unreasonable amount of time covering such a large area, to get to
know an area and its people. I wanted to gather that information sooner, so
would start with a smaller more focused area.

One distinct advantage of beat work was that I would not have to work
nights. Night shifts I found, were one thing or the other, either frantically busy
with people under the influence of alcohol wanting to fight or it was deathly
quiet. Had more of the criminals been active only after 10pm I would have
wanted more of it. The natural tendency of a crime-driven police officer is to
want to be where the action was.

My expectations of working a beat were challenged considerably by regular
re-assignments as a result of greater local and national events. I started my
two-year spell as the RBO for Beat 33, early in November 1983 and ending
late in October 1985. During that time, I was not to gain the full depth of
knowledge I wanted due to external calls upon services.

Everything started well. I quickly picked up that the social class differences
were strongly connected to the type of housing, a common factor when
dissecting a community. Kingstanding Road was the main road running right
through the middle spine of the beat. To the west of this was mainly council
housing that came under the Kingstanding district. To the East was mainly
privately-owned dwellings, mainly under the district of Streetly, Sutton
Coldfield. A small triangular section to the very northern tip of the beat was
also privately owned under the Streetly district.

I knew from research in the intelligence office, that most of my time would be
spent in the areas of council housing, as this was where most of the crime
and incidents of disorder were recorded. Offences in the Streetly areas of the
beat were far fewer and of a minor nature so would require less of my
attention.
Years later, after my departure from the police, I authored a blog that looked
closely at patterns of crime. Most of the crime in any cosmopolitan city
occurs in the lower post code areas. The closer to a City Centre, the higher
the crime rate, decreasing in concentric circles outward from the centre.

So, the further out from a City Centre you travel, the less crime was
experienced my studies revealed. In the main, apart from the modern
expensive developments that have appeared in City Centres over more Page108
recent years, the lower income and unemployed members of the community