Police plan to tackle crime on transport

Date: 19/09/1996

By Rory Watson

POLICE associations are urging the European Commission to give a higher priority to tackling crime and promoting safety in its bid to boost the use of public transport in the Union.

Proposals for improving the level of security on public transport are contained in a submission from the Standing Committee of Police in Europe (SCOPE) in response to the Commission's recent Green Paper on the Citizen's Network.

“If you want people to travel on public transport, then it has to be perceived to be safe. If not, they will not travel on it. We make that point pretty forcefully and we would hope that as much as possible of what we suggest is taken on board and that advice passed on to people who design public transport,” said SCOPE Secretary-General Dave Hayward.

The Committee says tackling crime must be one consideration in EU policy-makers' efforts to promote the viability of public transport, and advocates a number of measures to tackle criminal or anti-social behaviour. It also suggests the Union should investigate the idea of mutual recognition of driving disqualifications to help make road networks safe.

With members in Belgium, Denmark, Ireland and the UK, SCOPE is seeking to inject the views of operational police officers into EU debates wherever their experience is relevant.

Established in 1993, SCOPE represents a new departure for police forces which have traditionally fought shy of EU business, but now find that their interests increasingly overlap.

It has tabled submissions to the European Parliament on child pornography and football hooliganism, is examining ways of increasing cooperation with the Commission's anti-fraud unit UCLAF and is considering the possibility of using the Phare programme to provide training for police forces in Central and Eastern European countries.