About Neighbourhood Policing Teams
Neighbourhood policing teams are central to the delivery of the Rural Crime Partnership's agenda, carrying out farm visits to advise on security and working with communities to strengthen crime prevention networks.
Project funding has been used to support these initiatives and to establish a new position within the team of Rural Crime Adviser.
The Rural Crime Adviser will work with the Neighbourhood Policing teams, rural communities, industries, farms and organisations such as Young Farmers and the National Farmers Union, to help them become harder to target for criminals:
- Offering crime prevention advice to prevent rural residents becoming victims of crime.
- Organising crime prevention events.
- Tackling crime related issues raised by rural communities.
What is a Neighbourhood Policing Team?
Every neighbourhood in the Thames Valley area has a dedicated neighbourhood policing team that works together with the local community and partners to:
- reduce crime and incidents,
- bring more offenders to justice,
- protect the vulnerable and tackle violence against women and girls
- improve victim service and public confidence.
Neighbourhood policing teams are led by senior police officers and include police officers, Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs), police staff, police support volunteers and the Special Constabulary.
They aim to make communities safer through an approach that is focused on visibility, engagement, problem solving and community resilience.
Country Watch
The Country Watch scheme brings people living and working in rural parts of the country together to create communities that share information, develop communication networks and work with the police to reduce rural crime.
The main aims of the Country Watch scheme are to:
- reduce local opportunities for crime and vandalism.
- reinforce community spirit so that everyone can contribute towards the protection of their property.
- introduce early warning systems in farming and countryside areas.
- improve the intelligence flow between rural communities and police.
As part of the scheme you can sign up to Thames Valley Alerts to receive messages via email, text or voice mail, about what’s happening in your local area.
The service is completely tailored to you, so you can choose what sort of alerts to receive – whether you’d like:
- news on local incidents,
- community news,
- to be alerted to significant or high priority messages.