Report shows welfare problems dominating police time

Monday 24 April 2017

More and more police time is being spent looking for missing people, including one person who was reported missing 51 times in a year. There's also been a 178% increase in the mental health problems officers are called to deal with.

The new figures are in Police Annual Performance Report, and show there were 525 reports of missing people last year – that’s an average of about three people going missing every couple of days.

Many of the ‘missing’ were teenagers. The report describes 329 of the incidents as, "...unauthorised absences from care homes", relating to young people within residential care.

Whilst the number might seem very high, it’s explained in part by some people consistently going missing. The report says one individual was reported missing 51 times.

The Police are increasingly becoming involved in community issues that were once the domain of other agencies. As the chairman of the Jersey Police Authority, Jonathan White, writes in the foreword to the report: “...Protecting and supporting vulnerable people is now a core policing activity. Comparing data from the last 5 years, there has been a 178% increase in reported mental health incidents and a 37% increase in welfare incidents attended by officers. In addition, the force has a considerable on-going resource commitment to the Safeguarding Partnership Board’s strategies and plans.”

It’s also reflected in comments from the Police Chief Mike Bowron: “Positive steps have been taken to safeguard and support vulnerable people in Jersey. Vulnerable adults and children are closely associated with welfare incidents and can trigger several departmental services - we have seen good progress made by the Safeguarding Partnership Board (SPB) in this area.”