When Sean Edwards found his car and his neighbors’ houses broken into in Longsight, Greater Manchester in 2022, he did not expect much from the police based on previous experiences. He expected them to dust for prints and take statements, then give them a crime reference number and nothing else would happen. Similar incidents had happened before, but this time, the policeman who saw them was really good. The police took statements and forensic evidence, and also found CCTV of a man using a stolen card in a supermarket. Edwards’ housemate had spotted someone suspicious at the time and later identified the burglar from the footage. The burglar was convicted after pleading guilty.
Successful outcomes like this are more common in Manchester than they used to be. Under the stewardship of the chief constable, Stephen Watson, who took the helm at Greater Manchester police (GMP) in 2021, the force began to take burglary seriously and has cut offences by a third. Between December 2020 and December 2021, 16,758 residential burglaries were recorded across Greater Manchester. The figure fell to 11,256 last year, a 33% reduction, equivalent to 106 fewer burglaries a week. During the same period, the number of burglary arrests increased by more than a quarter, and the number of solved crimes almost trebled – from 4.2% to 11.5%.
The force launched Operation Castle in 2021, in which officers attended every reported burglary, a move away from treating such crimes as “volume” or “low level.” The turnaround is also in part due to the creation of neighbourhood crime teams, which focus on using community intelligence to target and arrest criminals carrying out burglaries, robberies, and car crime. With a suspected frequent burglar in custody on remand, residents in the area can sleep a little easier. The 999 call handlers often are the first contact a victim makes when reporting a burglary, and sometimes, they are on the phone while an intruder is still in the house.
After call handlers, it is often the Crime Scene Investigators (CSIs) who are next on the scene. GMP’s decision to go out to the site of every burglary means vital forensic evidence is more likely to be preserved. The team has also moved to working across the force area, rather than being tied to a particular district, which means they can often get there more quickly. Burglary in Greater Manchester is not a problem solved, but residents can expect a better response from the police than they would have had five years ago.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/mar/02/greater-manchester-police-cut-burglaries-crime-operation-castle
