Hackney in bottom ten London boroughs for confidence in police

Photograph: © Ray Forster (Creative Commons)

New figures show that 65 per cent of Hackney residents have confidence in the police.

New online tools mean the public can see which Londoners, in terms of age and ethnicity, have the least confidence in the police and how well their local police are performing compared to other similar areas.

Hackney comes in ninth lowest in London with overall confidence in the police at 65 per cent; the highest confidence being 86 per cent in Richmond and the lowest 49 per cent in Newham.

Across London the tools highlight an ‘east-west’ confidence divide with those living in west London generally reporting a more favourable attitude toward the police.

The tools also show a differing in confidence across Hackney’s four ‘neighbourhoods’.

The highest areas of confidence are Homerton with 73 per cent and Stoke Newington with 69 per cent. The lowest areas are Shoreditch with 64 per cent and ‘North-East Hackney’ with only 61 per cent confidence in the police.

The Neighbourhood Confidence Comparator groups London’s 108 policing neighbourhoods into 12 types depending upon dozens of economic, demographic and social indicators.

‘Hackney North-East’ is classified as ‘deprived multi-ethnic’ along with twelve other neighbourhoods, with confidence ranging from 50 per cent in Barking and Newham East to 74 per cent in Waltham Forest Central.

Homerton, Shoreditch and Stoke Newington are classified as ‘inner gentrification’; eight other neighbourhoods come under this type and the confidence levels range from 58 per cent in ‘Bow & Mile End’ and ‘Brick Lane & Globe’ to 73 per cent in ‘Southwark North-East’ and Homerton.

The Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime Stephen Greenhalgh, who launched the mapping tools said that in Hackney “confidence in the police is not as high as we would like”.

He said: “For the first time we are giving Londoners a clear picture of confidence in their neighbourhood, and we are challenging local police forces to do better.

“Right now in Hackney, confidence in the police is not as high as we would like, although some parts of the borough have higher confidence scores. We hope these tools will be used by local police leaders to make fair comparisons between similar neighbourhoods in order to learn from areas of London with higher levels of confidence.”