The people of Brownhills voice their feelings about the town being named the most dangerous place in the West Midlands

Express & Star

The people of Brownhills voice their feelings about the town being named the most dangerous place in the West Midlands.

Transcript

00:00We're asking about the crime rate in Brown Hills.

00:03Oh, right.

00:04So, if you just take a look at this.

00:06There was a report that released that said the crime rate in Brown Hills

00:10has got a crime rate of 151.5 per 1,000 people.

00:14That was due to a recent report.

00:16We're just seeing, just getting residents' opinions.

00:18Do you think Brown Hills is that bad of a place?

00:21There'd probably be worse prices, I would think.

00:24I mean, Middlesbrough was mentioned on their news last week.

00:30I bet that was up there.

00:33A bit low, that is.

00:35Do you think it's gotten worse over the last five years?

00:39I'd say it probably has, really.

00:41Probably has?

00:42Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:43Have you witnessed any sort of crime yourself at all?

00:46Not too major, obviously.

00:48Not right now.

00:49Only a bit more in the shoplifting and the charity shop where I work at.

00:54Do you think there's any sort of solution to that figure?

00:57Do you reckon getting more police on the streets, anything like that?

01:00Well, I suppose you might do, but it's happened, that's the thing.

01:04I just think it's shocking.

01:06I don't think there's enough police presence in the area.

01:10You've got all your smaller police stations that have closed down,

01:13so response time is way, way longer than it ever was and ever should be.

01:19Yeah, absolutely.

01:20So I think the young ones have got nothing to do.

01:24There's nowhere for them to go.

01:26There's nothing.

01:27Everything has shut down for the young ones,

01:30so I think your crime rate's going to go up.

01:32Absolutely.

01:33I mean, like, how many crime, with the youth centres,

01:35because that is a major part in the rise in crime,

01:37like how many youth centres used to be around this sort of area,

01:39like, you know, five, ten years ago?

01:40Yeah, there was one in every village, six in every town,

01:44but there aren't any now, are there?

01:47Not really, no.

01:48So they're just hanging around the streets, going into trouble.

01:52Like I said, there's only one when I was younger and it wasn't really advertised, really.

01:55No, they weren't advertised.

01:57All the kids from school knew where they were.

01:59Yeah, yeah, yeah.

02:00So the solution, then?

02:01Do you reckon the solution is more youth centres, more policing?

02:03More policing, more youth centres.

02:05Things to get kids off the streets.

02:07Yeah.

02:08Give them somewhere to go.

02:09Positive role models as well.

02:10Yeah.

02:11Oh, absolutely.

02:12Absolutely.

02:13Yeah.

02:14Well, I think that they need to have joined-up thinking.

02:19Yeah.

02:20Of course, getting rid of the police station.

02:23I mean, it's an open door for criminals.

02:26Yeah.

02:27You can't take bobbies off the beat and put them in cars and put them out of reach somewhere.

02:33Absolutely.

02:34My father was a beat bobby in the 1980s, when I was growing up, the 70s and 80s.

02:40And he patrolled the Dells, because that's where he was stationed,

02:46and he'd go to the Dells library, as it then was,

02:50and he'd secrete himself in there.

02:53People were ostensibly going to return or choose a book.

02:58Yeah.

02:59But really, they were actually going to consult him, sort of tip-offs about local ne'er-do-wells.

03:04We could do with that today.

03:06Absolutely, yeah.

03:07It's one of those things that's gone, isn't it?

03:09You know, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, people knew the local police officers.

03:13I don't think you get that these days.

03:14Yes.

03:15My father's been dead 12 years,

03:16but I think he would be appalled to know how things are these days.

03:20I don't like it, and I think that there's no trying to understand where people are at.

03:26It's like they're parallel universes.

03:30They're powers that be live in ivory towers,

03:33and they should come and live on these estates.

03:36They should see for themselves what it's like.

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