VULNERABLE victims of crime are missing out on vital support because thousands of incidents are not being recorded by police, inspectors have found.
Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary said South Yorkshire Police ‘required improvement’ in its crime recording procedures, having found an estimated 17,000 incidents per year go unrecorded.
The findings have been seen as a setback by police, who told the Chronicle this week that plans are already in place to boost Barnsley residents’ confidence in reporting crimes.
Having last been assessed in 2014, inspectors admitted improvements had been made, although only 89.5 per cent of all crimes were recorded leaving more than one in ten reports going missing.
Of the 1,374 crimes inspectors audited between June 1 and November 30 last year, 290 related to domestic abuse. The report revealed 62 were not recorded, including 47 violent crimes, one of which was a ‘serious assault’.
The report said: “Many of these were reported directly to the force but were not recorded. We found no clear evidence or rationale why they were not recorded as crimes.”
More than 5,900 violent crimes and 130 sexual offences are also thought to go unreported per year - the latter being a ‘significant improvement’ on the findings in 2014.
However, the force failed to record 13 sexual offences, most of which were a variety of crimes committed against children, while 15 out of 28 vulnerable victim crimes were recorded.
Dr Alan Billings, South Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner, said: “South Yorkshire Police has been making steady progress in all areas in which it has been inspected.
“Clearly more needs to be done around crime data recording, but having spoken to the chief constable about this, I am reassured the force has moved on positively since the inspection.”
