NCRS

NCRS is the National Crime Recording Standard which was introduced to ensure all forces recorded crime accurately and crime reports were generated where appropriate. The only time where a crime report should not be generated is when:
1)There is credible evidence to suggest a crime has not happened.
2)There is a non personal crime or there is no victim.

But there could be a crime related incident which does not need a victim ie CCTV calls in and says there is a fight in the street but officers arrive and there is no one to be found. Then a crime related incident should be completed (CRI)

My force is currently telling us not to crime everything because we are recording too much crime. But frequently i am finding that a call comes in, i attend and discover that there are no actual offences. I Write the job off as no offences and carry on with my job.

I then find that someone (a civilian) has generated a crime report and i now have to investigate this as a crime. I now need to get a statement from the Aggrieved confirming that there has been no crime, and witness's statements confirming that they did not witness a crime and corroborating the Aggd's statement. I then have to secure any evidence supporting that no crime has been committed.

So basically i am investigating something that is not a crime to prove that it is not a crime. Rather than investigating an incident to get an offender and the crime detected.

So much for reducing the amount of time officers are tied up with paperwork!

So recently i have now discovered that everything we attend will be at the least a Crime Related Incident and recorded appropriately.

It has now been expanded to the drunk in the street.

Call comes in, male has been assaulted by unknown offender(s).
Male is very pissed with no injuries and tells police nah i cant be bothered with it and provides no further info.

We would have given him the Number for the job and say, look your drunk, call in the morning if you decide you want to make a complaint.

Job done.

Now we have to record it as a CRI and get an account from him at the scene and further investigate when he is sober. Seize CCTV, witness details etc.

Now catch 22. We are not allowed to get accounts from Aggd's if they are drunk if we do so we are up for a disciplinary.

Cant win now we have officers tied up on a Friday Saturday night with drunk Aggd's who don't want us there trying to generate a crime report which does not need to be crimed.
We also have out own force saying, don't crime everything unless a complaint is going to be made.
By the same token the Civilians criming everything even before we get there.

Bureaucracy at its best.

JS