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