In May last year, author John Harvey finally retired Nottingham’s favourite detective Charlie Resnick – but was the fictional police officer’s decision influenced by falling crime rates in certain areas of the city?
Students living off-campus in Nottingham are already benefitting from greatly reduced crime rates in the last year thanks to the work of Nottinghamshire Police and The University of Nottingham.
Launched in September 2013, Operation Graduate is the name given to work conducted by Nottinghamshire Police and a number of partners, including The University of Nottingham, with the aim of reducing crime rates and ensuring that local communities are a pleasant area for residents to live, work and study.
Representatives from the police force and other partners came together at the Nottinghamshire Police Awards on Wednesday to celebrate the success of the programme in Lenton, the Radford and Park Ward.
Operation Graduate was presented with the One Team award, a prize that recognises consistent and effective teamwork across departments and with other stakeholders. Melanie Futer MBE, Off Campus Affairs Manager at The University of Nottingham accepted the award on behalf of the University. She said:
“Working closely with the Police we have greatly decreased the burglary rate in areas where we have a large student population. Operation Graduate consisted of a number of activities including greeting the students when they arrived, close and targeted police patrols and informing students when burglaries had occurred so that they could ensure that their house had the appropriate security.
“None of this can be accomplished alone, it was only by working as a team that we achieved the success.”
Ongoing work by the University’s Off Campus Affairs team was recognised as being crucial to the success of Operation Graduate. The team has led a number of campaigns to raise awareness of personal safety and reminding students to protect their property. The ‘Love your stuff’ campaign encourages students to ensure that they lock their windows and doors and to register their valuables on the free national property register: www.immobilise.com