Evidence of What Works to Reduce Crime

Building Safer Communities – Briefing Paper Last updated: 7 April 2015 Our vision is of a flourishing, optimistic Scotland in which resilient communities, families and individuals live safe from crime, disorder and harm

www.buildingsafercommunities.co.uk Summary

The Building Safer Communities Programme seeks a flourishing, optimistic Scotland in which resilient communities, families and individuals live their lives safe from crime, disorder and harm.

The programme wants to help communities, and national and local partners, to work together to achieve this in two ways. Firstly, by reducing the number of victims of crime by 250,000 by 2017-18; and secondly by reducing the number of victims of unintentional harm by a significant amount over the same period. This figure is currently being determined.

Building Safer Communities works collaboratively with partners, makes best use of the strengths that exist within communities and uses improvement to drive transformational change.

Purpose

Everyone has the right to feel safe in their community and it is unacceptable for people to be afraid or intimidated when going about their day-to-day business. A Safer and Stronger Scotland is one of the Scottish Government’s strategic objectives and is fundamental to the Strategy for Justice. We have already made significant progress toward this objective:  Recorded crime in Scotland is at a 40 year low;  Violent crime has more than halved (down 52%) since 2006-07;  People feel safer in their communities, with fewer victims of crime (20.4% in 2008-09 to 16.9% in 2012-13) and more people describing their communities as safe places to live;  The crime clear-up rate by Scotland’s police is the highest since 1976;  Road casualties are at the lowest level since records began (1966); and  Fires have reduced by 20% since 2006-07.

However, there remain significant challenges, particularly in those communities most affected by deep-rooted issues like worklessness, poor educational attainment, poor mental wellbeing and preventable ill health. In particular:  evidence shows that people who live in economically and socially deprived communities are more likely to be the victims of crime and unintentional harm;  44% of recorded crime occurs in the 15% most deprived communities in Scotland (source SMID 2012);  prisoners in Scotland are much more likely to come from our most deprived communities; and  in 59% of violent crime in Scotland the victim said the offender was under the influence of alcohol, and in 29% under the influence of drugs.

Crime, victimisation and harm also have costs to wider society:  Violent crime in Scotland in 2010-11 cost approximately £1.9bn, or 40% out of the estimated total cost of crime of £4.9bn (excluding fraud or motoring offences). (Source Justice Strategy evidence review)  The cost of unintentional injury to the NHS is estimated at £40 million annually. When you include the costs to individuals, their families and society the cost is estimated at £2 billion annually.

We have developed the Building Safer Communities programme to deliver marked change for the better (over and above what we think would have happened anyway) in response to these issues. It is one of four programmes set up to deliver the Strategy for Justice and contributes to the wider Public Sector Reform agenda and to the Programme for Government.

Programme focus

Our ambitious long term vision is of a flourishing, optimistic Scotland in which resilient communities, families and individuals live safe from crime, disorder and harm. This is set out in more detail in our 2020 vision.

To ensure we have the greatest impact we will focus our collective efforts on the short term aims: to reduce the number of victims of crime by 250,000 by 2017/18 (phase 1) and to reduce unintentional harm (phase 2 – currently being scoped).

We expect to have the biggest impact on phase 1 aim by focusing on:  Reducing violent crime because it has the highest social and economic impact  Focusing on improving outcomes within specific locations where the opportunity for transformational change is the greatest.  Promoting more of the preventative activity that is identified in What Work to Reduce Crime (see Annex A) where it will have the greatest impact.  Targeting general safety messages to prevent the most prevalent issues like housebreaking and vandalism.

Scoping for Phase 2, to reduce unintentional physical or psychological harm that could have been predicted or prevented, is underway. It will focus on home safety, road safety and outdoor and water safety and on improving our use of knowledge and data.

Programme success

We will know the programme is succeeding when:  real and measurable progress towards the aim of reducing victims of crime and unintentional harm can be demonstrated (through Police Recorded Crime, the Crime and Justice Survey, Fire and Road Safety Stats and A&E admissions);  the relevant national outcome indicators on Scotland Performs are going in the right direction;  everyone with a stake is committed to working collaboratively towards agreed local outcomes (local plans and single outcome agreements clearly reflect safer and stronger outcomes set by communities and progress is reported to communities);  more people are actively engaging with each other within their communities (measure via numbers of volunteers at a local and national level);  bureaucracy and siloed working is regularly and constructively challenged through open questions;  local and national partners experiment and test innovative approaches to building community resilience and reducing crime (evaluation reports, case studies and safer communities awards); and  good practice, and new learning are openly shared across local areas and adopted by others (there is evidence of practice change as a result of learning from others).

A separate paper connecting these measures of success to the national outcomes and justice outcomes and indicators is being developed.

The ambition is to achieve more through a national programme than would happen anyway by working to a set of shared values:  we are positive, optimistic and inclusive;  we trust and respect ourselves and others;  we listen and look for what people can do;  we are creative, responsive and bridge traditional boundaries;  we enable, facilitate and empower others to find and fulfil their role; and  we take risks to make change happen.

The role of the Building Safer Communities Programme Board, the organisations it represents and other national organisations is to:  vigorously pursue transformational change for the issues the programme seeks to address;  design the programme involving all stakeholders - national and local agencies, voluntary and community organisations, businesses, and individuals and communities themselves so it is owned and delivered by them to best meet their needs;  create a working environment where the shared values are actively encouraged;  commit resources to achieving the programme aims;  facilitate, enable and encourage local partners (including communities) to carry out their role; and  collaborate across traditional boundaries to develop shared and effective policy together.

Local Agencies (public and voluntary sector):  to commit to achieving the programme aims through delivering national community planning priorities set out in single outcome agreement guidance;  to engage communities in understanding and solving local issues that affect them through implementing strategic guidance for community learning and development and the community empowerment Bill;  to continue to work to improve community resilience and reduce crime based on the evidence of what works in that area and continue to use that evidence to innovate and inform practice;  to set priorities, make decisions and allocate work with other local partners including voluntary and community organisations and communities themselves;  to set priorities in partnership based on a wide range of data and evidence;  to design services in partnership with communities and partners;  to use multiagency case management to better co-ordinate services for individuals and families;  to co-locate services to improve collaborative working;  to learn and share that learning with others through Scottish Community Safety Network and the learning network;  to use the guidance, case studies and other resources available; and  to design Scottish Government policy with us to support you locally to achieve the best outcomes for individuals, families and communities.

Communities:  to consider what we in communities want to do to support the programme aims;  to engage in local decision making that affects us all;  to tell government and service providers what we can all do to help and support what works locally for us as individuals, for our families and for our communities;  to show government and service providers what works in our local areas; and  to participate in local activities and form groups which benefit our communities.

Programme delivery

Our approach is to support public sector reform, the justice strategy and the Programme for Government to:  generate more and better community-led approaches that develop and promote the strengths of people and communities to be part of identifying and solving their local issues;  support community planning partnerships and communities in places (locations) where the potential for transformation change is greatest;  ensure approaches to prevention are focused on issues and places where they will have the greatest impact and are based on evidence of what works to reduce crime, victimisation and unintentional harm; and  focus on performance through continuous improvement of the national outcomes by applying reliable methods to ensure that services are consistently well designed, based on the best evidence, and are delivered by the right people to the right people at the right time.

A national team made up of some of the key partner organisations will support activity initially in seven locations: Aberdeenshire, Renfrewshire and Edinburgh community planning partnerships; and South East Alloa, Gorbals and Possilpark community led Link Up areas, and Polmont Young Offenders Institution. We encourage other areas to participate.

Practice, learning and experience across the programme will be shared through online resources and an active learning network and advisory group.

Programme governance

The programme is governed by a Board whose role it is to:  champion the programme’s aim by promoting the programme within their own organisations and with key partners and stakeholders; and  provide constructive scrutiny, challenge and support across all aspects of programme delivery.  Paul Johnston (Chair), Director for Safer Communities, Scottish Government  Jackie Brock, Chief Executive, Children in Scotland  Rose Fitzpatrick, Deputy Chief Constable, Police Scotland  Graham Foster, Director of Public Health and Strategic Planning, NHS Forth Valley  Lesley Fraser, Director of Regeneration, Housing and Welfare, Scottish Government  Graham Hope, Community Safety Lead, SOLACE  David Hume, Board Member, Scottish Police Authority  Martin Johnstone, Chief Executive, Poverty Truth Commission  Karyn McCluskey, Director, Violence Reduction Unit  Lewis Ramsay, Assistant Chief Officer, Scottish Fire and Rescue Service.  Susan McVie, Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research/University of Edinburgh  Wendy Wilkinson, Deputy Director for Safer Communities, Scottish Government Annex A

Evidence of what works to reduce crime

We want to promote more activity from the What Works to Reduce Crime Evidence Review to reduce crime (and therefore victims of crime). The finding of the review fall into four strategies:

1. We are already working to address the underlying causes of crime:  continued investment in early-years and parenting programmes is crucial in the promotion of self-control as well as improving life-chances more generally;  a child protection system which identifies and addresses abuse and neglect as early as possible is important, given the evidence of a link between this experience and offending behaviour;  the school environment has an important role in ensuring a range of positive outcomes for young people;  the most effective strategies in encouraging positive behaviour through school-based interventions focus on developing positive healthy relationships;  effectively tackling drug and alcohol misuse is key to reducing crime. The underlying causes of substance misuse may be rooted in low self-control due to ineffective and inconsistent parenting in the early years; and  strong societal attachments have been identified in the form of stable employment and good familial relationships as key factors in promoting law abidance;

These prevention strategies will impact in the long term.

2. Deter offending:  criminal justice sanctions such as prison or a community payback order should (wherever possible) minimize the impact on employment prospects and familial relations;  increased and effective deployment of police is effective in reducing crime, particularly in relation to property-related crime;  increasing police patrols in crime hotspots will help to reduce crime as will taking a community policing approach;  efforts aimed at building public trust in the justice system and its institutions are important, given the strong correlation there is between perceptions of their legitimacy and compliance with the law;  the extent to which a community is cohesive and able to work together to achieve goals is a more powerful predictor of violence, burglary and robbery than signs of social and physical disorder; and  concentrated disadvantage is the factor most strongly associated with crime and disorder.

3. Reduce the opportunities for offending:  environmental changes including improving street lighting and avoiding overcrowding in public venues can be effective at reducing crime and violent crime – and accompanying such interventions with widespread publicity make them an even more effective deterrent;  urban planning initiatives like ‘Secure by Design’ have been shown to be effective in reducing crime;  strategies to restrict access to weapons, drugs and alcohol are associated with a reduction in crime;  many large scale diversionary projects have demonstrated some success in reducing offending.

4. Intervene with those who have already offended to reduce the risk of them offending again (Justice Change Programme Reducing Reoffending).