« Back to 2005 News Archive

Backtrack Initiative clears Crime Backlog

A BACKLOG of more than 180 crimes in Wigtownshire costing victims tens of thousands of pounds has been solved by police in the last eight weeks.

Thanks to the latest "backtrack" initiative, culprits have now been reported by police and will be brought before the courts in due course.

From vandalism and assault to wilful fireraising and housebreaking, 181 crimes have been solved in total since the initiative began on 14th January.

Senior police officers have hailed the scheme a success. Detective Inspector Ian Cowie, based in Stranraer, said:

"Going by the results this has obviously been a success.

"Vandalism has been a great concern to people in the west of the region given the volume of that type of crime so it is reassuring that we were able to detect a lot of those offences.

"It is recognised as good practice to review undetected crimes and a large percentage of these crimes would not have been detected unless we had pro-actively looked back over crime patterns including offender behaviour.

"Backtracking is not the be all and end all, it is just one aspect we are looking at. We like to reassure the public that crimes aren't forgotten about."

During the eight-week drive two constables were taken off frontline duties to concentrate their focus solely on solving a backlog of offences dating back to April last year.