The Home Secretary has announced new measures to ensure that police and local services work together to tackle anti-social behaviour, boost local confidence and keep neighbourhoods safe.
The "Safe and Confident Neighbourhoods" Strategy builds on the success of neighbourhood policing and will ensure anyone with a concern about crime and antisocial behaviour gets the assistance they need. It will also make it easier for the public to play their part in tackling crime and antisocial behaviour. This will be achieved through:
* rolling out a national police non-emergency telephone number – 101 – by 2012, making it as easy to report antisocial behaviour and crime over the phone as it is to report an emergency by dialling 999;
* support to enable communities to negotiate and sign neighbourhood agreements on how their local services, including the police, will keep their neighbourhood safe in 12 pathfinder areas across the country – and supporting more than 100 interested areas;
* more support for Neighbourhood Watch, including to work with Age UK to recruit older people;
* support from the Future Jobs Fund to employ young people in roles, such as police cadets, to support neighbourhood policing;
* inviting chairs of magistrates’ benches to make appropriate arrangements by which magistrates could be involved with neighbourhood partnerships in their areas, whilst protecting judicial independence and avoiding any perception of bias; and
* repeating the successful Community Cashback scheme allowing people a say – including through online voting – on how a further £4million of criminals ill-gotten gains are spent.
Home Secretary Alan Johnson said:
"It is a fact that crime has fallen. Overall crime is down by more than a third since 1997 but we must acknowledge that the perception of crime and antisocial behaviour hasn’t always followed the same trend.
"Neighbourhood policing has revolutionised the way the police service works with the community to tackle the local crime and antisocial behaviour issues that matter the most.
"The public have a right to have their concerns about crime and antisocial behaviour promptly tackled, but this is not the responsibility of the police alone. We are making it clear that all local services must work together to ensure this happens.
"This new strategy means that all communities can be more confident than ever that we are delivering on our top priority of keeping streets safe."
The Safe and Confident Neighbourhoods Strategy can be viewed at http://police.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/community-policing/safe-confident-neighbourhoods/
