Partnership and Crime Prevention (From Handbook of Crime Prevention and Community Safety, P 734-756, 2005, Nick Tilley, ed, -- See NCJ-214069)

• NCJ Number: 214093
• Author(s): Daniel Gilling
• Date Published: 2005
• Length: 23 pages
• Sale Source: Willan Publishing
• Publication Format: Book Chapter
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United Kingdom

Annotation

This chapter examines the difficulties and dilemmas inherent in forming and sustaining effective partnerships for crime prevention, focusing on policy and practice in the United Kingdom as illustration.

Abstract

One of the key factors in the establishment and maintenance of effective community partnerships for crime prevention has been the shift from “government” (achieving coordination through bureaucracy) to “governance” (achieving coordination through networks). Yet, the author shows how the New Public Management strategy in the United Kingdom, which focuses on crime control through the use of performance indicators, has contributed to police dominance in community partnerships. The agenda of the police has been prioritized over the agendas of other partners while the official rhetoric on crime control continues to stress the diffusion of responsibility for crime prevention. The chapter begins by reviewing official reports that have documented the difficulty in establishing and sustaining community partnerships for crime prevention. Overall, research suggests that effective partnerships must have a clear mission or purpose that is built around the recognition of interdependence. The importance of strong leadership is underscored, as is the importance of sound partnership structure, resources, time, and continuity of participation. The way in which partnerships work is then examined through three interacting levels of analysis (micro/interpersonal, meso/interorganizational, and macro/political, economic, and structural) that focus on the tensions, ambiguities, and contradictions that are both inherent to partnerships and form the root cause of many operational difficulties. Criminal justice policy and practice in the United Kingdom is examined, particularly police policy and practice, which has faced the contradiction of developing partnerships that it is then tasked with leading. Ways in which the police service can overcome the dilemma posed by the intersection of the rhetoric of partnership and the hierarchical control of police leadership are examined from each of three levels of analysis before the author concludes that partnerships are in danger of becoming largely symbolic if the state cannot resolve its need for control. Note, references