‘Ring of Steel’ and the latest technology will deter travelling criminals

A ‘ring of steel’ is to be placed around Lancashire as part of a Christmas crackdown on armed robberies.

Officers, including specialists from the road policing unit, support
unit and armed response unit, will be carrying out extra patrols on key
arterial routes in and out of the county and mounting road side checks
to identify any criminals that may attempt to travel into Lancashire to
commit offences.

The very latest technology will be deployed in the fight against crime
too - with officers using mobile fingerprint scanners to make sure
wanted criminals can’t evade capture. The devices, no larger than a
mobile phone, are used to scan the finger of a suspect to check their
identity and to cross-reference them against the national fingerprint
database.

This new technology will speed up the time it takes for officers to
identify individuals at the roadside, enabling them to bring more
offenders to justice and reduce inconvenience for any innocent members
of the public who may be stopped.

Supt Pete O’Dwyer from Lancashire Police said: “The North West has
seen significant reductions in cash-in-transit robberies in recent
years. Our message to criminals contemplating carrying out these kind of
crimes in the run-up to Christmas is clear - we will find you and we
will make sure you spend the festive season behind bars.

“In partnership with colleagues from other North West forces, we are
carrying out a range of activity to prevent and detect offences and we
are using every tactic at our disposal, including the very latest
technology, to combat crime.

“People in Lancashire should be reassured that we are doing everything
possible to target criminals that travel into the country to commit
crime and keep the county safe this Christmas. “

“People in Lancashire should
be reassured that we are doing everything possible to target criminals
that travel into the country to commit crime and keep the county safe
this Christmas.“