Researcher hopes report on Leighton crime can help police

Daniel Winfield, of Leighton Buzzard, carried out the survey because he wanted to do something positive for his town, following his recent graduation from university, where he studied criminology.

He spoke to 127 residents, 77 females, 48 males (plus two who reveal their gender), 42.52% of those asked were aged between 25 and 40.

When asked if they had ever reported a crime that they had been a victim of or witnessed, 14 people said they had not and 84 people had.

Drug use and drug dealing were reported by 24 people, assault was reported by 22 people, and theft and burglary incidents reported by 18 and 16 people respectively.

Lower down on the list of crimes reported to police was credit card fraud, homophobic attacks, fly-tipping, murder, gun related crime and abuse, with only person reporting each of these crimes.

Of the crimes reported, 58 people said there experience with police was bad because of a slow/poor response, no follow up or no response.

The report concluded: “The data shows that a majority of people in Leighton/Linslade consider the crime level to be a significant problem.

“This can be put down to the fact that despite the reasonable reporting rate for crime in this sample they still seem to have frequent experiences with serious crime and very little good responses from the police. This in turn shows why the public seems to rate the crime level in Leighton/Linslade so highly.”

Mr Winfield hopes to pass on the results to the police, he said: “I have spoke with the chairman of the police liaison committee about presenting the report to the police.

“I hope they will be able to make use of the data, I feel communication with the public is something that they are missing. The results may be able to help improve that.”