Police Scotland's National Rural Crime Prevention Team Year Review 2024

Shared from Rural Watch Scotland

Already over one week into 2025 we have taken this opportunity to look back at what was achieved by Police Scotland’s Rural Prevention Team in 2024. 

• We have continued to work alongside multiple partners through our national SPARC (Scottish Partnership Against Rural Crime) platform which include organisations such as NFUS, NFU Mutual, Neighbourhood Watch Scotland, Scottish Land and Estates, The British Horse Society, Forestry Land Scotland and many more.
• We continued to support the 19 local PARC’s (Partnerships Against Rural Crime) nationally that work towards combating rural crime in the variety of communities from Dumfries and Galloway in the south to Argyll and West Dunbartonshire in the North.
• We worked closely with our policing colleagues south of the Border from Northumbria, County Durham, North Yorkshire, Cumbria, Cleveland and Humberside forces, sharing intelligence to target and combat cross border rural crime via Operation Hawkeye.
• We have supported our policing colleagues in all 13 divisions with rural crime enquiries, securing several positive results in relation to GPS Thefts, Quad/Plant/Agricultural machinery theft, livestock offences, hare coursing and heritage crime.
• Attended a variety of national and local agricultural events engaging with the public and provided crime prevention and security advice. Whilst also spending time at popular dog walking locations to talk to and educate dog owners about their responsibilities when exercising their dogs in the countryside.
• Carried out a wide range of presentations and talks with police delegates from Sweden and Berlin, young farmers, policing colleagues, NFUS and the Scottish Government.
• We delivered prevention advice and developed crime prevention techniques and campaigns nationwide in relation to rural crime a good example of which was in the Police STOP ME sticker campaign. A specially designed sticker was designed to be adhered to the rear of farm vehicles, machinery and quads. If a vehicle is displaying this sticker, then officers will stop it between the hours of 10pm and 5am to see if it has a credible reason for being on the roadway during the hours of darkness, times when most rural thefts occur.
• We actively monitor rural crime on daily basis, identifying emerging trends which then allows us to advise and provide a monthly review of rural crime to internal and external partners, that can then be used to drive forward activities and prioritise resources. 
• Numerous Operation Loose the Blinker deployments around the country working with the British Horse Society, mounted officers and road policing department to educate road users about safe passing of horses on the roads.

We hope you have had a positive and calm start to 2025, and our team will continue to keep you updated with all the work we continue to do as we go through the year.