Hartlepool 'worst in the country' for reoffending - with just 28 criminals accounting for almost a quarter of all crimes

Figures show the borough has a reoffending rate of more than 42% for adults, which has now been shown to be the highest in the country.

A report also reveals 28 individuals were linked to ‘more than 400 offences’ in Hartlepool during this period, which accounted for 22% of all detected crime in the area.

The figures came from those published by the Ministry of Justice covering October 2017 – September 2018, with shoplifting in particular highlighted as an issue which often saw reoffending.

Overall data identified more than 800 individuals who were detected and charged with more than 1,800 offences in Hartlepool during the assessment period.

The information was revealed in a report which went before a meeting of the Safer Hartlepool Partnership on January 22.

Cllr Shane Moore, Hartlepool Borough Council leader, said reoffending can have a big impact on victims and businesses, as well as making the town look ‘worse than it is’.

He said: “I do know that for many of those, a lot of those can be linked to maybe five or six shops.

“Whilst they may be seen as minor offences to some people, they’re clearly driving a lot of figures, they’re clearly having a massive impact on a local area, especially if it’s targeted at a specific set number of local shops.

“I know these are low level crimes, but often as we know it means there is something else going on in the background as well.

“It’s about the actual positive outcomes, that’s a large percentage of crimes of reoffending that are denting everybody’s statistics and it makes a town like Hartlepool look a lot worse than it is.”

Chief Inspector for Hartlepool Pete Graham, who is also Cleveland Police technical retail crime lead, said a great deal of work is being carried out to tackle reoffending and shoplifting in Hartlepool.

He said: “We’re trying to understand how we can better sum up all the offences that take place, there’s a few things that are starting to happen in Hartlepool.

“There’s lots of problem solving going on and we’re looking at tactical ways we can try and improve things, lots of things in the background.”

He added they now have a site within Middleton Grange Shopping Centre to try and tackle the issue.

An update was also given to the partnership from Jo Foreman from the Cleveland Integrated Offender Management Scheme on how they support and educate those who have committed crimes, such as shoplifting.

The group aims to improve the quality of participants’ lives and reduce reoffending, using a partnership approach to select who takes part in the programme, with 50 from Hartlepool in the current cohort.

Ms Foreman said she hopes when the latest figures are released they will see a drop in the reoffending rate for Hartlepool, noting they have taken steps to identify people to support to help tackle the issue.

She said: “It is still early days and we know that shoplifting remains a significant issue in Hartlepool.

“Shoplifting does have a massive impact…what we have looked at is having those individuals in our cohort.

“It’s important that we go through and we check that we’ve actually got those individuals within our cohort, so I’m hoping since then we’ve picked up some of those.”

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