DEVELOPING A STRATEGY FOR REDUCING CRIME AND IMPROVING COMMUNITY SAFETY?

Developing a strategy for reducing crime and improving community safety?

Developing a strategy for reducing crime and improving community safety?

Introduction

The quality of life and safety of a particular community is reliant upon many factors. These can range from vandalism and graffiti to burglary. Community safety relates to people's sense of personal security and to their feelings of ease in the places that they live and work. It affects how people value their neighbourhood, and is a major part of what makes a neighbourhood a good or bad place to live. In order for a community safety programme to be effective and successful, there needs to be a sense of cooperation between the community and contributing agencies involved. This vital connection was to be implemented with the introduction of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, which called for partnership relations between local communities, agencies and the police. Throughout this essay I will be concentrating on the contribution community based methods have on the overall safety of a community. I will be looking at the different methods used and the way in which local communities work with outside agencies in reducing crime. (Grabosky, 1995, p10) This paper discusses how useful is the concept of "diversity" in developing a strategy for reducing crime and improving community safety.

Discussion

Community Safety

The term community safety is a complex and widely interpreted phrase. It ultimately means the protection of everyone's right to live without fear for their and other people's safety. It is a relatively new concept, which has only recently taken face with the introduction of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. Community safety strategies have created new partnerships and installed a sense of security and safety among local communities. Different organisations bring diverse resources, skills and knowledge to the partnership. However, each organisation has its own set of objectives to pursue and must operate within individual management systems and structures. The challenge facing community safety partnerships is to develop a local management model which is acceptable to all partners and which ensures the partnerships' objectives are achieved.

Diversity

Inner London is the richest population subdivision in the European Union.1 Over one million people come into London daily to work.2 Average earnings in London are almost a third higher than the UK average.3 Despite this, there are major pockets of crime and deprivation in London: 13 of the 20 most deprived local authority areas in the UK are London boroughs;4 unemployment in Inner London is twice the national average;5 and Londoners in deprivation suffer disproportionately due to the higher cost of living. London also suffers disproportionately from crime. There were 1,059,822 recorded crimes in London in 1999-20006 - 21 per cent of all recorded crime in England. London showed the highest regional increase in recorded crime - 12.6 per cent for the Metropolitan Police (8.8 per cent for the City of London) - with the lowest clear-up rate for violent crimes in the UK The ALG Survey ...