NCJ Number
215270
Date Published
2006
Length
28 pages
Annotation
This chapter looks behind the experience of the United Kingdom’s Crime Reduction Program, as well as efforts in Australia and New Zealand and the processes used for implementation to argue for a stronger process of active and ongoing engagement between central and local agencies.
Abstract
The problem apparent in the United Kingdom’s Crime Reduction Program was a pattern of well-evidenced crime prevention based initiatives without a mechanism for assessing their specific appropriateness in different contexts, nor a way of determining which communities would be best able to pick them up and implement them. There are a number of commonly and frequently repeated errors in the way that central and local agencies relate to each other in the planning, delivery, and evaluation of initiatives. There is evidence in the failure by central agencies to invest adequate effort in understanding the internal capability of a community to take necessary crime prevention action. To achieve effective local crime reduction program delivery, all levels of the program implementation process need to be treated as a single integrated system, as opposed to a fragmented process with disconnected ownership and responsibility. A stronger process of active and ongoing engagement between central and local agencies is necessary. Paying particular attention to the recent experience of the United Kingdom’s Crime Reduction Program, this chapter examines the systems and processes that are employed to design and implement crime prevention programs as a whole. It examines the roles and functions fulfilled by central agencies and all the intermediate policy and program layers through to the local level and back. The understanding of the need for collaborative policy development and program planning and delivery has now become a key feature of the way crime reduction and prevention efforts are and should be organized. Table, references