Search results

Section 17 of the Crime and Disorder Act was intended to place issues of community safety at the centre of the delivery of local services. It implied a shift from a bureaucratic model to network governance. These objectives have not been achieved and the reasons include a lack of clarity in definition, inadequate resources, poor leadership and competing imperatives.

This article considers the experiences of people with learning difficulties as victims of hate crime. It considers how the Crime and Disorder Act and No Secrets can help identify and prevent hate crime, and examines an example of good practice designed to produce an effective response.

In this personal view of a decade of the Crime and Disorder Act (1998), Daniel Gilling argues that New Labour are to be congratulated for bringing about a radical reform in the landscape of local crime control. However, he is also critical of central government's high level of control over CDRP and local police business. His solution is a partnership approach built on stronger local accountability delivered through neighbourhood management structures and facilitated by CDRPs, with central government ‘speaking in a much quieter voice’.

This article concerns the implementation of the proposals from the Crime and Disorder Act Review. The Review focused on developments in policy and practice in crime and disorder reduction partnerships (CDRPs) and community safety partnerships (CSPs) since the introduction of the Crime and Disorder Act (1998). These developments, the recommendations promulgated by the Review and their implementation are all discussed.

This paper will reflect on the impact of the Licensing Act 2003 (LA03). It will focus primarily on how the LA03 has been introduced to, and has influenced, the night‐time economy (NTE). More specifically, it will examine the impact of the LA03 on alcohol‐related crime, disorder and harm to health, within an urban context. It will review the evidence base for the impact of the LA03, suggesting reasons why the UK experience of extended trading hours is not consistent with international evidence. It will examine the mixed findings from evaluations as to its success/failures/limited influence, and discuss its impact on a number of organisations involved in the promotion and safety of the NTE. It will highlight the continued struggles encountered within the NTE, between the promotion of an enjoyable and profitable NTE, and those who have responsibility for maintaining a safe NTE environment. It will also discuss potential extraneous factors that have superseded the LA03, before concluding by offering and discussing some possible avenues for future direction.

An enormous amount of time is spent talking about the involvement of the voluntary and community sector with crime and disorder reduction partnerships (CDRPs) and yet the reality is that the approach to the way that statutory services work with them continues to be mostly tokenistic. Whilst the government advocates the necessity of closer working relationships with voluntary or community organisations, few of these organisations play an integral part in working alongside most CDRPs as they discharge their responsibilities under the Crime and Disorder Act (1998). This article highlights the importance of CDRPs recognising how well placed the voluntary and community sector is in enabling them to plan, implement and evaluate their work.

The role of the community safety practitioner is a newly emerging expertise in local government. A survey conducted with local authorities reveals a relatively fluid and unstructured profession of highly educated or experienced individuals with heavy workloads. Practitioners inhabit a contested policy terrain in which they express a preference for a social regeneration agenda rather than narrower crime specific strategies.

This article traces the development of ideas and policies linked to the shifting definitions of crime reduction, prevention and community safety. The conceptual changes are often difficult to define due to imprecision and breadth. Community safety is sufficiently broad to be concerned with a range of harms and hazards beyond crime and disorder, which may become the focus of the emerging new forms of government.

The principles of the housing planning guidance known as New Urbanism give little recognition to those that promote crime reduction contained in Secured by Design and the requirements of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. Experience and research indicates that there will be consequences for significantly increased crime and disorder. The consequences of New Urbanism are estimated in terms of increased crime, demands for policing and the resource implications.