POLICE chiefs in Lancashire may soon adopt ideas from a radical American approach to the fight against crime.

Three top officers recently visited San Diego on a fact-finding trip to discover more about the city's Problem Orientated Policing policy.

San Diego has seen a massive 62 per cent reduction in crime in just six years. It has concentrated on involving the public in the war against criminals and setting up groups called Citizens' Patrols.

The California city has a higher population than the whole of Lancashire, fewer police and a smaller police budget. But the number of crimes is considerably less with 61,825 recorded in one year compared to 109,763 in Lancashire.

Police chiefs have been so impressed with Problem Orientated Policing they are now looking at implementing it in the county.

The trip, which included a separate visit to Victoria, Australia, to look at their policing, was taken by Assistant Chief Constable Gerald O'Connell, Detective Chief Inspector Stuart Kirby and Acting Superintendent Ian McPherson.

The policy has seen some bizarre methods of crime-cracking but it has proved effective.

Acting Supt McPherson told a meeting of Lancashire Police Authority: "In one case in San Diego there was a group of drug users who were using a beach.

"Instead of the police just moving them on the community launched a scheme in conjunction with the police where they bought loudspeakers and blasted classical music at them. They didn't come back!

"The focus is on front line policing and looking at the cause rather than the symptom."

San Diego police also try and deal with the majority of callers over the phone.

DCI Kirkby said: "They had very experienced staff who dealt with calls and people put the phone down feeling very happy with the police response.

"In Lancashire we deploy officers to 70 per cent of calls. If we operated a similar system we could reduce the number of deployments by 110 every day."

The police said Citizens' Patrols had not led to a vigilante approach to crime and had resulted in criminals staying away from areas once they had been reported.

The matter will be discussed in more detail at another meeting in November.

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