CRITICISM has been levelled at the police’s poor coverage in Newcastleton.
But, equally, residents are not reporting minor crimes because of a history of them not being followed up.
Community councillors heard that, under the monthly report’s new format, Newcastleton was mentioned only once in the last three reports.
It was one of the reasons why the council was raising money to buy CCTV.
Boy racers’ anti-social behaviour and criminals from the Central Belt and north-east England using the village as a rat-run did not score points on the police’s crime system.
Barbara Elborn, secretary, said; “Once we get the CCTV installed, people will see that we have got crime but it’s not being reported and recorded so it’s not in the reports.”
Councillor Watson McAteer said that if no-one recorded this type of information, that created a perception that nothing was happening.
He added: “Road accidents are not recorded so when it comes to wanting something, officials turn to the statistics and say there have been no accidents.”
Greg Cuthbert, chairman, thought the community council should log incidents as well so it had a record of crimes to present to the police.
Barbara suggested the community council had a website so people could put in information and the police could look at it and make a judgment.
Councillor George Turnbull said he thought the system broke down when an incident was reported but was not passed on.
Mr McAteer said: “He’s right. Every incident is recorded through the command and control system.
“Newcastleton has a number and it’s simple to count the incidents under that number every month.
“But no-one will do it. They say they have more important things to do.
“We have technology which should make incident retrieval simple, even if it’s just statistics.
“When I was a commander, that information was vital. You could see where to put your resources.
“But it’s not done now. All the civilian staff employed to that work were made redundant.
“Officers are having to do the administration but they’re not doing it so they can go on the streets.”
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