Community Safety
This introductory page covers the general background and links community safety. The following pages provide links to good practice, research and analysis in crime prevention and reduction. They give a more detail of background to crime reduction by crime type.
What is Community Safety?
There are quite a few definitions of what community safety is and can do. We have taken a simple and practical one as the starting point for the development of this site:
Community Safety is the use of skills, knowledge and techniques, to prevent and reduce crime, disorder and fear of crime and develop safer communities in which to live, work and visit.
Community Safety Workers are those that use their skills, knowledge etc., to achieve safer communities; Community Safety Audits are about the measurement and analysis of the crime and disorder issues and Community Safety Strategies are about the systematic prioritisation and planning to tackle crime, disorder and fear of crime to achieve safer communities.
Community safety is crime prevention plus. It combines the prevention and reduction of crime and disorder and combating drugs misuse at one end and at the other touches on urban and social regeneration at the other.
Basic essential guidance for the development of crime and disorder reduction partnerships is contained in the Home Office guidance Delivering Safer Communities: A guide to effective partnership work. The guidance introduces the new concept of Hallmarks of Effective Partnership and is divided up into four key aspects of partnership business: The guidance was developed to support the 'Crime and Disorder (formulation and implementation of Strategy) Regulations' (Statutory Instrument 2007 No.1830) and 'Crime and Disorder (Prescribed Information) Regulations' (Statutory Instrument 2007 1831).
Assessing Prevention and Reduction Issues
In analysing the detail of problems there are a number of techniques that can be used. The simplest of these is the PAT (Problem Analysis Triangle). PAT breaks down the elements of a crime problem into three component parts:
- The Victim or Target
Through the analysis of these three elements the specific community safety problem can be understood. This can then be combined with higher level (strategic assessments), either to provide a more comprehensive strategic understanding or, at the neighbourhood level, to better understand the relationship between the localised problem and any area wide influences. Such ways of working are at the heart of the current developments toward national standards for 'intelligence led business processes' 3.
For community safety to be effective and sustainable it has to be based upon facts and achieved through focused activity. The background issues need to be identified, an analysis needs to take place, there needs to be a developed response and that response needs to be assessed at intervals for effectiveness, continuity etc.
SARA 2 is one of the basic concepts for guiding practitioners through the systematic development of community safety action. It can be used for strategic, tactical or operational purposes.
1. Scanning - identifying crime patterns using local knowledge, basic data and police/practitioner intelligence.
2. Analysis - using collected information to understand the key issues/causes of a crime or disorder problem and ‘drilling down’ to fully comprehend the nature of the problem and its extent (see PAT below).
3. Response - developing and implementing a ‘solution’ – a scheme of activities to challenge the problems (with clear objectives, tasks and timeline).
4. Assessment – reviewing the solution; did it work, or is it working and in need of extension?
Making Community Safety from Crime Prevention
In the brave new world of Community Safety Strategic Assessments and Community Safety Partnership Plans it must be tempting to keep it simple - to rely upon police information to identify where the crime exists (recorded crime rather than digging deeper to find out actual incidents) or stick with the core functions of the partnership agencies rather than looking critically at our functions and our way of functioning in the light of what we have identified as new priorities or new ways of working that create new resource needs .
The diagram below illustrates links between the strategic, tactical and operational aspects of crime prevention together. It also identifies that both strategic assessments must have real strategic intelligence and that is both police and community information and must be informed by local priorities - which can only be truly gauged through effective community engagement and local prioritisation.
The Community Safety Action brings together all the elements of strategic assessment and tactical assessment and practice. Advised by these assessments and the national and local priorities and resources available, it can provide for a more efficient use of resources and a more effective practice.
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Community Safety Links
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Local Safety Audits: A Compendium of Practice
The purpose of this Guidance, published by the European Urban Security Forum and others, is to explain Safety Audits and to encourage and support their use. ‘It has been written for everyone who has a significant role to play in designing and funding crime prevention programs and in directing, developing or delivering crime prevention activity.
A site dedicated to information about AC inspections and reports.
Calling Time on Crime : Executive Summary
The most comprehensive review undertaken in Britain of crime reduction activity. The main aim was to examine how police forces and partners were embracing earlier recommendations on crime reduction and community safety, the extent to which the Crime and Disorder Act was being implemented and the support provided by both central and regional government.
National Audit Office's 2004 community safety value for money report.
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