Government response
INTRODUCTION: THE COALITION GOVERNMENT'S APPROACH
BASED ON THE REPORT'S THEMES
The Committee carried out an in-depth inquiry into
the previous Labour Government's approach to crime prevention.
It used that Government's 2007 document 'Cutting Crime: a new
partnership 2008-11' as a framework. We have set out a summary
below of our approach to crime prevention using the themes adopted
in the Committee's report for ease of reference. We will set out
our position more fully in a crime strategy and a Green Paper
on Rehabilitation and Sentencing to be published following the
Spending Review.
We are committed to cutting crime, which will include
preventing crime, through a radical reform of the system. Our
approach is already exemplified by our consultation proposals
in Policing in the 21st Century: Reconnecting police and the
people. At the heart of this is the shifting of power from
the centre to local people and increasing the accountability of
police to the people they serve. Key to this will be the directly
elected Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs). They will drive
local people's priorities for tackling crime and disorder. Our
overall intention is to empower communities and give greater discretion
to local service providers to find solutions to the problems they
face. In our policing proposals, the public will have access to
better local crime information and participation in beat meetings.
The proposals we have set out in our consultation on our policing
proposals already offer the most significant shift in the connection
between the police and the people for fifty years.
Measures to prevent youth criminality:
We want to prevent youth offending and give young people a chance
of a better life. The Coalition Government's approach to preventing
youth crime will focus on tackling the risk factors that can lead
to youth offending, developing stronger community engagement,
and improving the effectiveness of sentencing. Through our emphasis
on community engagement we will encourage young people to influence
neighbourhood priorities. A key initiative will be the introduction
of a National Citizen Service which envisages providing 16 year
olds with an opportunity to develop the skills needed for active,
responsible citizenship and community involvement.
Measures to design out crime:
We are developing our approach to designing out crime. We want
an approach that highlights the shared responsibility with the
private sector, galvanises the innovation of the British design
community and empowers consumers to demand secure products, places
and services. We are considering systems for routinely identifying
emerging crime problems that lend themselves to early design solutions
and where there is a clear need for Government intervention we
will make robust use of levers to demand safer design.
Measures to reduce reoffending:
Reducing reoffending is vital in order to reduce crime and prevent
future victims. The Government plans to introduce a range of measures
designed to meet this aim through changes to policies on sentencing
and rehabilitation. These changes are designed to punish offenders
for the crimes they have committed while at the same time providing
them with support to rehabilitate.
Our proposals for radical reform of the Criminal
Justice System will form the basis of a Green Paper on Rehabilitation
and Sentencing in the autumn where we will set out plans to address
problems of substance misuse, low skill levels, lack of work experience
and employability that many offenders present. Among the proposals
in the Green Paper will be plans to trial payment by results mechanisms
working with voluntary and private sector organisations that specialise
in the rehabilitation of offenders.
Measures to maximise partnership working at a
local and national level/The role of the different public sector
partners in crime prevention: The coalition
approach to preventing crime will encourage partnership working
with individuals, communities, and local and national agencies.
In these challenging financial times it becomes even more important
for local agencies to work together to focus on shared outcomes
and take a collaborative approach to delivering against those
outcomes. A key part of neighbourhood policing, which we support,
is to work with other neighbourhood partners.
We propose to declutter the wider partnership landscape
and remove restrictive regulations to make it easier for Community
Safety Partnerships to tackle local problems and prepare for the
arrival of Police and Crime Commissioners in 2012.
The role of the voluntary and community sector
in crime prevention: The voluntary sector
and charities can play an important role in crime prevention.
Neighbourhood policing is key to preventing crime and anti-social
behaviour and we want to improve this 'active guardianship' through
greater participation by volunteers in Neighbourhood Watch and
other local schemes. We will use dormant bank accounts to establish
a 'Big Society Bank', to provide finance for neighbourhood groups,
charities, social enterprises and mutual societies. We will also
reduce bureaucracy to make it easier for the sector to work with
the State.
The role of business in crime prevention:
We recognise the cost and disruption that crime causes to business
as well as the damaging effects for communities and consumers.
Retailers and other businesses are encouraged to report crime
in order that the police can better understand patterns of crime
and formulate strategies and tactics to prevent retail and other
crime at a local level using proven problem solving techniques.
We are also encouraging greater corporate social responsibility
on the part of business and greater emphasis on joint funding,
sponsorship and volunteering in order to maximise the opportunities
that the development of the Big Society presents.
Crime and links to deprivation:
In addition to the Committee's terms of reference, we will look
at key risk factors such as substance misuse, alcohol misuse and
poor mental health and these will be incorporated in the overarching
Crime Strategy later this year.
Health
As committed to in the NHS White Paper published
on 12 July, the NHS Commissioning Board will have an explicit
duty to promote equality and tackle inequalities in access to
healthcare.
Violence can disrupt children's development and affect
their educational attainment. It can also have a significant impact
upon their long-term mental and physical health, and can contribute
to behavioural problems. The Department of Health is also taking
forward work in response to an independent Taskforce on the Health
Aspects of Violence against Women and Children, and has set up
an NHS Implementation Group to oversee progress.
The Coalition Programme for Government has included
a commitment to make hospitals collect and share information with
local partners to tackle violence (including gun and knife crime).
Department of Health is leading work on this commitment which
will support local areas to make interventions to tackle and prevent
violence.
Alcohol and drug related crime
It is worth mentioning that the Coalition Government
is committed to preventing the damage caused by drinking and drug
use. We have set out proposals to overhaul alcohol licensing in
a consultation launched on 28 July and these include making it
easier for communities to have their say on local licensing, taking
tougher action against underage drinking, and charging a fee for
late-night licenses. We intend to ban the below cost sale of alcohol
to ensure that retailers will no longer be able to sell at irresponsible
prices.
The Home Office is working with other Government
Departments and partners to develop a new drug strategy which
will be published in December 2010. We also propose to reduce
drug-related offending by incentivising local criminal justice,
voluntary and other partners to work together in a more joined-up
and targeted way to deliver cost effective services, including
models such as Integrated Offender Management (IOM) which builds
on and expands current offender-focused programmes and approaches
such as the Prolific and other Priority Offender (PPO) programme
and the Drug Interventions Programme (DIP).
| 
