Crime No fear of that Martin Davis Head of Partnership and Engagement

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Crime No fear of that! Martin Davis
Head of Partnership and Engagement

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Introduction the issues

• We are not alone the international context
• Public Confidence in crime reduction a balanced
  view?
• How do people learn about crime personal
  experience, others experience, reports in the
  media?
• Partnership in Communications
• Good Practice wider issues

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Sustainable Safer Communities

• It is now accepted by most national and local
  spheres of government that urban safety needs to
  be built from homes and street level up, and
  incorporated into local and national planning. It
  cannot be left to the police alone. Urban
  governance processes, and urban policies that
  target exclusion, social inequalities, as well as
  appropriate planning measures, are the key to
  success. Indeed community security requires a
  holistic and coordinated approach..
• Anna Tibaijuka - Executive Director UN Habitat
  September 2007

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Public Confidence in crime reduction a balanced
view?

• International survey of feeling unsafe walking
  home at night published by UN Habitat in 2007
  of the 35 nations surveyed, England and Wales
  featured as the 17th most fearful country (above
  the United States, Canada, Japan, China etc).
• Crime rates fell by 42 between 1995 and 2005 and
  in 2006/07 remained steady.
• The decline reduced the risk of the average
  person becoming a victim of crime by 41,
  although that risk increased by one percentage
  point last year
• Most people have a low chance of being victims of
  crime but the numbers of people that are afraid
  or worried about something happening to them
  continue to be high.
• The British Crime Survey 2006/07 identified that
  the percentage of adults with high levels of
  worry about burglary were13 high levels of
  worry about car crime 13 and high levels of
  worry about violent crime were 17.
• Fear of crime differs by region with London
  being significantly higher in fear than other
  parts of the UK.

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Fear of crime differential impact

• Fear of crime can deter people from using public
  facilities (parks and open spaces) and public
  transport and some groups are particularly
  affected.
• Black and minority ethnic people's fear of crime
  is higher than that of white people,
• Some women will not travel after dark, and
  parents restrict their children's usage of public
  transport.
• DETR survey found that fear of crime while
  waiting for a train or bus after dark is greater
  for women than for men, with bus stops being
  considered less frightening than railway
  platforms.
• 44 per cent of women and 19 per cent of men felt
  unsafe waiting for a bus, and 53 per of women and
  23 per of men felt unsafe on a railway platform
  after dark.

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Influences on Crime Fear/Perception

• Social Awareness of Crime and Disorder personal
  experience, others experience, reports in the
  media.
• Signal Crimes (social semiotics) the processes
  by which particular types of criminal and
  disorderly conduct have a disproportionate impact
  upon fear of crime.
• 3 Rs of Urban Change - responses to peoples
  perceived risks based upon environmental
  degradation, poor public services, diminished use
  of public services etc.

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Signal Crimes and Resilience

• Particularly potent incidents with impact on
  local perceptions of neighbourhood security,
  frequently functioning as risk factors (gun
  crime, other violent crime, ASB).
• Altering how people think, feel or act to their
  security - interpreted as indices of the level of
  safety afforded by a particular area.
• A recovery process is most likely to gain
  traction when several key features are all
  present in an area
• adequate levels of resilience behavioural and
  environmental control signals
• connections between sources of formal and
  informal social control
• agents of social change who can reinforce and
  amplify initial improvements.

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Community Engagement

• Working with Community and Police Engagement
  Groups
• Conducting local a survey of perceptions of crime
  to identify the specific issues concerning
  residents, business people and visitors to the
  area.
• Scanning the area for significant fear of crime
  issues social  environmental.
• Conducting 'face the people meetings' with
  residents and other stakeholders in the area.
• Reviewing local crime and disorder data -
  including historical information.

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The 3 Rs of Urban Change

• Risk - Risk factors are insecurity-generating
  conditions that increase the likelihood of an
  area decaying and declining. They are risk
  factors because, while crime and disorder can
  corrode security leading to decline in some
  localities, it does not happen because of
  resilience factors.
• Resilience - resilience factors enable some
  places to withstand and mitigate the risks and
  threats to which they are exposed. A
  neighbourhoods resilience capacity reflects the
  distribution of economic and social capital, and
  is connected to the presence or absence of
  collective efficacy
• Recovery - recovery factors promote and propagate
  enhanced security and in the process contribute
  to an overall material improvement in a
  neighbourhoods situation.

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Partnership in Communications

• Multi Agency Public Information - establishing a
  realistic picture of risk
• EQ Focus ensuring campaigns focus on awareness
  issues
• Promoting Local Achievement - understanding of
  local achievement in crime reduction
• Challenging Signal Crimes - through effective
  campaigns
• Promoting Recovery and Resilience - through
  linked concept driven programmes and joint
  action projects.
• Dissemination of Social Change Information -
  about behavioural and environmental control
  signals communications actions connecting
  sources of formal and informal social control

Westminster City Council
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Making the Most of Communications

• Communications as a Section 17 issue broader
  than crime and disorder reduction
• Communications in Risk Assessment
• Developing and implementing a communications
  action plan
• Communications key to reducing fear of crime
• positive campaigns with local newspapers/radio
  stations
• holding local crime prevention and community
  surgeries

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Not another drop (Metropolitan Police Brent
Council)

• Feedback from Brent councils citizens panel
  showed that fear of crime, and
  particularly gun crime
  was a major concern for local
  people living in the Harlesden area of the
  borough.
• To tackle this problem Brent council in
  partnership with the Metropolitan Police made a
  successful bid for 800,000 from the Targeted
  Policing Initiative.
• Launched in January 2001 the Not Another Drop
  campaign was a unique two-year project to deter
  black on black gun related crime led by Brent
  Council and the Metropolitan Police.
• Multi event and community resilience programme
  that saw reduction in gun crime and in fear of
  crime.
• Winner of British Community Safety Award 2002

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Fareham - Planning Guidance

• The Council prioritised the reduction of crime
  and the fear of crime, and to lessening
  anti-social behaviour.
• They identified that the introduction of suitable
  crime prevention measures at the design stage of
  new development will have the effect of reducing
  the overall levels of crime
• Crime prevention can be a material consideration
  in the determination of a planning application
  and new development in the Borough should be
  designed to take into account the principles set
  out in this document. Failure to do so could
  result in the Council refusing planning
  permission.
• The Fareham planning guidance sets out
  requirements for the design and layout of new
  development in the Borough and encourages
  creative designs which balance the need to
  prevent crime with the need to create high
  quality environments. The guidance complements
  those of the Police under the Secured by Design
  banner.

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Buckinghamshire multi project

• In 1998/99 vehicle crime in Buckinghamshire
  totalled10,287 recorded
  incidents of thefts of and from
  motor vehicles.
• Set an ambitious target to cut vehicle crime by
  33 which was included in Buckinghamshires
  Public Service Agreement, the first partnership
  agreement of its type, signed with the Government
  in 2001
• A countywide programme to improved security at
  hot spot sites, use of Automatic Number Plate
  Recognition technology, data sharing and police
  target squads.
• The 'Caught Red Handed' campaign raised public
  awareness locally and, in addition, letters were
  also send to owners of vehicles who left valuable
  items on display in car parks.
• The partnership between the County Council, the
  District Councils and the Police has resulted in
  a 38 reduction in vehicle crime across the
  County, 5 more than the original PSA target

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Thanks for Listening
For more information visit www.community-safety.in
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