Our Priorities 2008-2011
The Partnership is required by law to carry out an annual Strategic Assessment of crime and disorder in the town leading to the production of a three year Partnership Plan. The following lists the Safer Harlow Partnership’s 10 key priorities for the coming year. Measurable objectives and targets which specifically relate to each of these priorities were set. These fed as SMART targets into the each of the SHP priority group’s action plans, which contain detailed programmes of action to achieve each priority:
1.Alcohol-related crime and disorder (principally Town Centre)
2.Children and young people as victims
3.Improve public perceptions of crime and feeling safe
4.Anti-social behaviour
5.Business related crime
6.Offender management
a.Reduce re-offending
7.Drugs and alcohol (substance misuse)
8.Vehicle crime
9.Dwelling burglaries
10.Domestic Violence
Priorities
Alcohol-related crime and disorder (principally Town Centre) Previous Strategic Assessment indicated that nationally, 80% of people think that more should be done to tackle the level of alcohol abuse in society. The 2008 Assessment confirmed our awareness of its links to violence in the town centre late at night, but it also appears that a significant proportion of the town’s anti-social behaviour (ASB) and criminal damage is attributable to late night alcohol-related disorderly behaviour. By reducing the amount of alcohol-related crime and ASB, there should be a significant reduction in overall volume crime and ASB in Harlow.
Children and young people as victims. The Performance Group identified this as a specific area requiring prioritisation by the Partnership in 2008. By focussing on this group in the community, the Partnership will be supporting the local Children Trust and the national Every Child Matters agenda in relation to ‘Stay Safe’, and will focus to ensure that early intervention activities are delivered through a partnership approach; particularly to stop young people become the offenders and victims of the future. By addressing this priority as a specific area, resulting interventions will also impact on other emerging priority areas in this Strategic Assessment that overlap, such as reducing alcohol-related violence, domestic violence and anti-social behaviour.
Improve Public perceptions of crime & feeling safe. The public’s perception of crime and disorder is disproportionate to the actual amount of crime in the town. This has a significant detrimental impact on the public’s perceptions of the town as a pleasant place in which to live and work. In order to address this issue the Partnership need to explore new methods to engage with the public, build community capacity, and ensure that perceptions realistically match the true picture in the town.
Anti-social behaviour. Anti-social behaviour continues to be an issue that causes significant concern for the local community and disproportionally impacts on perceptions of crime and disorder in the town. A significant reduction in Criminal Damage offences has been achieved in the past three years, but as the top volume crime, further reductions are possible. A multi-disciplinary approach will continue and will include “enviro-crime” (fly-tipping, abandoned cars, dog fouling, litter etc.), early intervention diversionary activities and provisions for young people.
Business related crime. A new area for the partnership in 2008, to encourage closer working with the Chamber of Commerce, and reduce under-reporting of business related crime focussing on a town-wide approach. This linked with other priorities where for example shop-lifting may have been connected to substance misuse. Through the success of HarBAC (Harlow Business Against Crime). Membership increase and the good work that has been achieved through taking a multi agency approach this area is no longer one of our priorities for 2010-2011
Offender management of Prolific and Other Offenders (PPOs) It is the case that much of the crime in the district is committed by a very few known individual, known by the term of “Prolific and Other Offenders” Police intelligence shows that approximately 60% of crime in Harlow is carried out by known offenders. The partnership will continue to target these individuals with particular emphasis being given to assisting the Probation Service in reducing the levels of re-offending by these particular individuals. Targeting re-offending will have a positive impact on the crime rates in Harlow. From 1st April 2010 Partnerships will now have a new duty to formulate and implement a strategy to reduce re-offending by adult and young offenders. The new responsibility requires Partnerships to build on existing PPO work, with a stronger focus on underlying issues including accommodation, education, training and employment, health, drug and alcohol, finance and children and families. The Partnership will seek to integrate work on reducing reoffending with existing work to reduce crime and anti-social behaviour and tackle substance misuse where appropriate
Drugs and Alcohol (Substance Misuse). It is important that the Partnership Plan 2008-11 provides a local focus on the implementation of the national drugs and alcohol strategies and links to the Essex Drug and Alcohol Partnership Strategy. Specific information on the links between actual crime and disorder in the town and drugs use remains unclear, although circumstantial evidence indicates a strong correlation. Reducing substance misuse, specifically by young people, therefore continues to be an important focus. Substance misuse can result in crimes such as burglary, car theft, mugging and robbery that are committed by some users to fund their habit.
Vehicle crime in Harlow has seen some significant improvements over the last 5 years with persistent reductions year on year, culminating in a 32.30% reduction during the financial year for 2009/10 in comparison with the year previous. Most notably the number of thefts from motor vehicles has dropped by 36.57% in the last 12 months. Thefts of motor vehicles have also seen a significant drop in number by as much as 55.14% in comparison with the peak during the 2005/06 financial year. because of the successes, vehicle crime is no longer one of our priorities for 2010-2011
Dwelling Burglaries Performance Group monitoring and a detailed crime pattern analysis highlighted an increase in domestic burglaries, including millennium burglaries, those where vehicles are stolen. The Crime Group have agreed to focus on this category as a priority.
Domestic Violence Repeat incidents of domestic violence and related assaults are attributable to the highest number of alcohol-related assaults and incidents are increasing across the County and need to be reduced. Along with alcohol-related violence, tackling domestic violence is key to the Government’s aim to reduce Most Serious Violence and this work links with the Home Office Tackling Violence Action Plan. This has emerged as a key priority for the Partnership.