Day IV

Strategic Management of Crime Prevention

Ross Hastings is professor at the University of Ottawa’s Criminology Department. He underlined the importance of the effective management of comprehensive community initiatives. Successful community action requires knowledge, skills and resources. If the community does not sufficiently possess these three capacities, community development is needed to build them. Converting capacities into measurable targets of success remains an elusive task, however. Another dimension of community involvement is partnerships. It is important to attract good partners and sustain their effective involvement. Mr. Hastings identifies four main components of effective partnerships: they must be targeted, sustainable, built around and impact new processes, and finally, they must be resourced and funded. Types of partnerships include: consultative (exchange of information), co-operative (planning, in-kind support, informal trade-offs), co­ordinated (joint planning and decision-making, in-kind support, protocols) and collaborative (joint­planning and decision-making, interdependence, collective accountability, resources and in-kind supports, protocols). The risks inherent in partnerships were also addressed: their complexity, how they can be demanding in terms of sharing resources and power, how sharing credit or blame can be complicated, and how they can be difficult to govern and administer.

The second presentation was given by Sohail Husain, Deputy Chief Executive of Crime Concern. Crime Concern is a British-based not-for-profit organisation, it’s mandate includes : influencing policy and programs, improving practices on the ground, and delivering services. Understanding the British context is key to understanding Crime Concern – the UK has recently witnessed higher crime rates compared to in the past, as well as compared to other countries. Increased levels of fear also influenced radical public service reforms under Blair, especially regarding legislation for justice, community safety and disorder. Soon it became clear that in order to adjust people’s fears, their view of the risk factors needed to be addressed. Correspondingly, there is a growing emphasis on citizen involvement in order to ensure that people are and feel more secure at home and in their daily lives. This new ‘liveability’ agenda has spurred an amalgamation of government departments and the launching of a new project entitled “Cleaner, Safer, Greener”. Pertinent contributing legislation includes the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act. Goals and priorities are identified at the national level, and then imposed upon the local governments, but the danger is that these goals and priorities may not be pertinent to the community. At times, too many priorities and goals are chosen, which is also counterproductive. The British government has therefore developed a partnership self-assessment tool which is reviewed annually in order to improve the next year’s projects. Despite all efforts in this direction, due to the coming election, there has been a shift towards punitive responses as the government does not want to appear as being weak on crime.