The Northern Ireland Policing Board is distributing 200,000 copies of a version of its annual report which outlines police performance and targets. Dan Keenan reports.
The board, which runs the PSNI, began the circulation yesterday in an attempt to inform public opinion about PSNI successes in combating robberies, burglaries and vehicle crime.
Its statistics show marked drops in each category of offence and a higher clear-up rate than that achieved by police in Britain. However, offences of a sexual nature show a marked increase of 21 per cent on previous totals.
Overall statistics show there were 14,500 fewer victims of crime in the year from April 2003 to March this year, the report says.
Prof Desmond Rea, chairman of the board, referred yesterday to the persistence of the fear of crime despite the downward trend in figures and the relatively good clear-up rates achieved by the PSNI.
"These must now be maintained and areas of concern addressed," he said.
"Since its creation in November 2001, the board has been getting on with the business on the policing agenda, and substantial progress has been made by the PSNI in effecting changes to policing structures, processes and practices.
"This has not been change for the sake of change, but change that improves how the policing service is delivered to the community," he said.
The move was greeted by Mr Al Hutchinson, the Police Oversight Commissioner, who issued his latest report on implementation of the Patten commission's recommendations on policing.
He commended the roll-out of new policing arrangements as "remarkable" given the tight time span.
But he also had his harshest rebuke yet for politicians who hold out against the new policing dispensation. He told The Irish Times his comments referred both to Sinn Féin, which refuses to join the Policing Board, and to those unionists who remain opposed to the 50:50 recruitment practice which aims to ensure equal numbers of Catholics and "others" in the ranks of the PSNI.