NCJ Number
192445
Journal
Criminal Justice Volume: 1 Issue: 4 Dated: November 2001 Pages: 421-439
Date Published
November 2001
Length
19 pages
Annotation
Based on recent examples from Great Britain, this article explores some strategic policy issues involved in developing an approach to "community crime prevention."
Abstract
In Great Britain, the primary political means provided by the state for delivering crime prevention has been that of partnership. Partnership has become a key principle of prevention, involving a rearrangement of responsibilities between central government, public police, and local government, along with a sharing of responsibilities for crime prevention between public agencies and private interests in local communities. Although crime-prevention partnerships have evolved piecemeal in Britain since the 1980's, the advent of the Labour government in 1997 has brought major changes to the governmental machinery for delivering crime prevention to the community. Chief among these initiatives has been the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, which inter alia requires police and local government to establish crime and disorder partnerships at the local authority level. First, the act imposes a joint duty upon the police and local authorities to devise and monitor community safety plans for their districts and to consult with other relevant agencies. Second, the act gives local government specific responsibility for attending to issues of crime prevention in the discharge of their other functions and duties, a responsibility hitherto reserved for the police service. The bulk of evaluations of community crime-prevention initiatives show that it is difficult to implant social control into high-crime communities. Fragmentation undermines a community's capacity to generate the kinds of social capital that might help it to organize against crime. Although the ultimate goal of self-sustaining community institutions in the highest crime communities may be far off in Great Britain, the question remains about how best to work toward this goal. This article discusses how two concurrent programs in Great Britain illustrate different policy approaches. 1 table, 1 figure, 5 notes, and 54 references