Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
12.6.1
Community Approaches for Crime Reduction
Some of these new community-based initiatives pre-date explicit Safe City agen-
das, but many have been re-vamped and incorporated within them.
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Crime and Neighbourhood Organizations
Like the volunteer patrols described earlier, organizations such as Neighbourhood
Watch provide surveillance and reporting systems by local residents on crimes or
suspicious behaviour that can be used by the police. This also creates more neigh-
bourhood co-operation and knowledge of problems, as well as providing informa-
tion to the police. Block Watch Parenting programmes have also been successful
especially in providing safe houses for children in distress, or those being bullied
or followed by stalkers. Residents of these safe houses are carefully vetted before
being allowed to participate and approved to show this sign. The problem is that
when an area becomes safer these approaches often fade and disappear, and take
time to be reconstituted if criminal activity increases. Also, since they depend upon
neighbourly co-operation, such organizations are often missing in the areas that
need them most, the high crime and poverty areas, because of the isolation of many
people and their fear of residents with criminal dispositions.
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Crime and Community Action Plans
These provide a new way of involving local residents in identify crime or poten-
tial problems in area, as a prelude to solving them. It has proved helpful in some
Dutch cities to have a Local Facilitator who is employed to monitor anti-crime
initiatives in local communities, to act as a resource person for local complaints,
and is familiar enough with the various social and police agencies to put pressure
on them to reduce bottlenecks or slowness in the delivery of existing anti-crime
programmes. In England and Wales a new neighbourhood approach has been suc-
cessfully adopted in high crime areas, where a somewhat similar key role is played
by a Neighbourhood Manager who acts as a centre for information and advice and
co-ordinates anti-crime activities and liaisons with the public and relevant agencies
(Turley et al.
2012
).
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Crime and Community Delivery of Social Facilities
Policies in this category range from initiatives to provide more
social and recre-
ational facilities
for local residents, especially the often bored teen and young adult
groups who have suffered from the reduction in the number of youth and sports
clubs in many areas and who may be capable of disruptive behaviours as well as
