Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
to create a multi-agency strategy. Another approach is a policy of 'Territorial Exclu-
sion' where individuals are banned from certain areas, those of high crime, at the
risk of being fined or returned to correctional facilities. The problem of city police
adopting these more aggressive tactics is that they do infringe on civil rights of in-
dividuals, so municipalities usually need to apply to higher levels of government to
provide the legal backing to adopt such policies.
12515
Reducing Remoteness from the Public
This has been achieved by adding more foot patrols in high crime areas and by
police officers making more presentations to schools and community groups to em-
phasize that they are devoted to helping the public and need support in preventing
anti-social and criminal behaviours. In addition many police forces now use Twit-
ter to provide and receive information from the public, which provides more con-
tact and often valuable information about problems occurring, although the Greater
Manchester Police Service site, which has been a pioneer in the use of social media,
is among those who stress that information on crimes being committed should be
reported via the police emergency numbers. Greater inclusiveness of police forces
is also being achieved by increasing the numbers of women and ethnic groups in
the forces, although the latter is still a problem in many areas, especially cities with
large numbers of recent and visible minority immigrants. The Police-Public Con-
sultative Committees that exist in many countries have also been re-organized to
create more effective communication between the police and the lay members, with
oversight by the latter. The public has also been encouraged to report more crime,
especially via communication devices such as Email, while programmes as Crime
Watch or Crime Stoppers, television reconstructions of unsolved crimes, often pro-
duce useful information for police and may provide rewards for respondents.
12516
Greater Agency Co-operation and Information Sharing
This has already been described as an essential part of the new integrative approach-
es of Safe City strategies, despite the difficulties of creating co-operation between
various agencies. But it is increasingly recognized that many of social agencies in
particular have information, especially on youths, that may be useful in reducing
the escalation of their anti-social behaviour to criminal actions, for example, by
providing remedial measures to those at risk, or in providing advance warning of
potential problems to police services. Access to this information is much easier now
most files are computerized. However civil rights advocates warn that this may in-
volve breeches of confidentiality when personal information from the files of vari-
ous agencies is shared. This is a problem that has to be resolved.
