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Camden News - by PAUL KEILTHY
Published: 9 April 2009

‘Drugs war is worth resources’

POLICE efforts to smash Camden Town’s drugs market may have left other areas feeling unprotected, but the crackdown has contributed to the borough’s officers becoming the top crime-fighting unit in the Met.
Latest figures show crime in Camden was significantly down for the second year running, with some offences such as burglary, robbery and stabbings cut by a third.
It means the borough stands to return the best figures in the capital, according to Detective Superintendent Jeremy Burton, who has headed Camden’s CID since 2007.
On Friday, he acknowledged that some residents would feel that all the focus had been on Camden Town, where a series of undercover stings have tackled drug dealers while uniformed police have flooded the streets, handing out tickets for minor offences like urination or possession of cannabis.
Det Supt Burton said: “We identified the fact that the drug market was fuelling acquisitive crime and we have targeted that market. Last week we had six robberies – two years ago we would have had six robberies a day. Those [undercover] operations have resulted in 150 years’ worth of custodial sentences.
“There have been some burglaries in the west of the borough [recently], for example. In the bad old days we would have flooded that area with cops, but academic studies show that you have to patrol for eight years to catch a burglar. We go straight after the burglars we already know.”
Residents retain a healthy scepticism about crime figures, which they regularly express at meetings. Even with the falls, there will still have been around 35,000 crimes reported in the borough last year, or roughly 95 per day.
At the last meeting of Camden’s community and police consultative group, residents from Kentish Town and Gospel Oak complained that spring had brought an increase in anti-social behaviour and gang tension. But the fall from 48,000 crimes during 2004 is among the largest in London.

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