University News Last updated 04 September 2014
Prof Craig Jackson has expressed his concerns after a government report highlighting how hard-pressed police forces are "encouraging" crime victims to carry out their own investigations.
The report by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC), named 'Core Business: an inspection into crime prevention, police attendance and the use of police time,' investigated a number of aspects of modern policing, including response to calls, quality of investigation and the use of technology.
“The HMIC report concerns me as many sex offenders and stalkers start out with minor crimes and low-level nuisance behaviour, such as trespass and damage of a victim’s property. An early opportunity to link serial crimes like this, and to therefore then prevent more serious offences being committed later, could be missed”, said Professor Jackson, an expert in criminal psychology at Birmingham City University.
“Also of concern to me is that many victims of low-level offences know the offender - worryingly we may be sending women victims of low-level early-stage stalking offences to investigate the crimes and meet the offender. It’s like sending the fly into the spiders web."