Safer Communities in Scotland: Page 13

4.1 Chapter 3 outlined the audit process from the selection of an audit team to the presentation of the audit report(s). Good decisions are based on sound information. A good audit will have:

4.2 The process from audit to action has four stages [see Box 1.1]. The audit report is the culmination of the first stage, 'defining the problem'. The next step is for the partnership to prioritise the problems identified in the audit and consider what it is going to do about the problem.

4.3 The experience of community safety partnerships and other strategic inter-agency groups suggests that it is best to concentrate on a limited number of objectives over the course of an initial three year strategic plan. The favoured number is between five and seven. Objectives should be demonstrably derived from the audit and public consultation, and can be expressed in various ways:

4.4 On the basis of the audit, partnerships may wish to consider crimes, incidents or accidents, which are:

4.5 Cities may need to include smaller area strategies, eg large peripheral housing schemes, perhaps linked to the work of the social inclusion partnerships. In largely rural council areas, sub- strategies might be needed for towns or larger settlements.

4.6 Predominantly rural districts may have low crime rates and decide to focus on anti-social behaviour or provide support to victims, as well as set objectives for youth crime prevention to maintain the low crime level of the area. Even within districts with overall low crime rates there may be areas or certain communities that are experiencing above average levels of crime.

4.7 A smaller authority with a population under 150,000 may be able to set specific objectives, eg:

4.8 Partnerships may benefit from setting some short-term objectives which might be achieved in, say, the first year to show early success in responding to community concerns. Measures to deal with problems such as housebreaking in crime 'hot spots', applied rigorously, can often create an early 'win-win' for the partners and communities involved.

4.9 Most objectives will be expected to be achieved over the three year lifetime of the strategic plan. Some social objectives might take more than three years to achieve, eg the prevention of criminality.

4.10 Each of the key partners, including the police, local authority, fire service and health board will be devising their own strategic plans with objectives and targets. Some of these targets will have been guided by national strategies and others will be planned in response to locally identified needs.

4.11 Drafting the partnership's community safety strategy should take account of individual agencies' own service objectives, eg policing plan objectives for reductions in housebreaking or drug related crime, or fire service objectives for reducing hoax calls. Strategies which incorporate or complement the objectives of key partners, enabling them to work in partnership to achieve their own goals, are more likely to succeed.

Key partners should also be encouraged to incorporate the partnership's goals into their own service plans, taking account of the audit findings for their service. They will then be in a better position to identify their own specific contribution to the work of the partnership.

4.12 Partnerships covering rural council areas should be aware of a separate Scottish Executive report by the Scottish National Rural Partnership, Innovative Ways of Tackling Rural Crime, which indicates the need to integrate community safety activity with other rural development issues.

4.13 Once the partnership has prioritised the problems and determined a limited number of objectives it will need to develop strategies for achieving each of the objectives. It may decide to set up small task groups to draft a strategy for each objective, or a small team to draft all of the strategies for the partnership.

4.14 Strategic options need to be carefully considered and a strategy for achieving each objective drawn up before drafting the action plan [see Box 5.1]. Action planning cannot start in earnest until a strategy has been drafted. There are three key stages in developing a strategy [see Box 4.1].

4.15 Stage One involves forming a clear understanding of the problem to be tackled, together with its underlying causes and any associated risk factors. Most of the information required will be contained within the audit. Some secondary analysis may be required in some instances to provide further detail about some problems [see Box 4.2].

Box 4.2 Problem solving in community safety Rationale choice theory: states that three elements have to be present for a crime to take place: a suitable target a motivated offender the absence of a capable guardian to protect the victim or inhibit the offender To prevent crime, at least one of these elements has to be altered. In general, it is easier to manipulate the first and third elements by making potential targets less attractive to offenders, or by introducing capable guardianship. Problem analysis triangle: a device which can be used in considering measures to deal with a particular type of problem or crime. It breaks incidents down in to three constituent elements: features of the location features of the victim features of the offender Hot-spots: strategies need to focus on those areas and individuals most affected by crime, fires, road accidents etc. In examining any particular type of incident, it is important to identify hot-spots. Hot-spots occur because victims, offenders, and capable guardians are not randomly distributed but are clustered by time of day and day of week. Repeat victimisation: it is equally important to consider whether repeat victimisation is a feature of the problem. Repeat victimisation is a particular feature of both crime and fire incidents where incidents recur against the same household or against the same people, eg the 1996 Scottish Crime Survey shows that: of the 3% of households broken into in 1995, 89% experienced one incident, 5% experienced two incidents and 6% experienced three or more incidents. However, the 6% of victimised households who had experienced three or more incidents accounted for 23% of all the housebreaking incidents the risk of being a victim of housebreaking varies according to the characteristics of the household. The incident rate was highest for single adult households and those living on the poorest public housing schemes Identifying risk factors: partnerships are encouraged to identify and tackle the underlying causes of community safety problems by identifying risk factors. Research shows that many social problems (community safety, poor health, poor job prospects and other aspects of social exclusion) have similar risk factors. A co-ordinated approach to tackling these risk factors can impact on various inter-related problems and have benefits for both creating safer communities and individual agencies mainstream service provision. Some of the main risk factors identified through research include:
RISK FACTORS
Family	Parental criminality, poor parental supervision and discipline, family conflict
School	Truancy and exclusion, disruptive behaviour, low achievement
Peer influence	Early involvement in problem behaviour, peer involvement in problem behaviour, high proportion of unsupervised time spent with peers
Early adulthood	Lack of skills or qualifications, unemployment or low income, homelessness
Community	Community disorganisation and fragmentation, availability of drugs, high child densities

4.16 Stage Two involves considering all the possible interventions that could be put in place to tackle the problem, its underlying causes and associated risk factors [see Box 5.2]. Drafting the strategies at this stage involves thinking creatively about possible solutions. The 'Stage and Method' approach provides a structured way of thinking about possible solutions [see Box 4.3]. Stage Two should produce a comprehensive list of possible interventions that could be implemented to achieve an objective.

Box 4.3 'Stage and Method' approach to strategy development Strategy development should consider all possible options for achieving an objective before selecting a number of appropriate options for inclusion in the strategy. The 'Stage and Method' approach provides a structured way of thinking about options. The approach can as readily be applied to the prevention of malicious fires or road accidents as it can to the prevention of crime or other forms of anti-social behaviour.
The first stage involves thinking about what could be done:
to prevent an accident or incident occurring in the first place		Primary prevention
* to stop it happening again either to the same victim, in the same place or by the same offender		Secondary prevention
* to work with offenders to protect the community, reduce the likelihood of repeat offending, and re-integrate the offender into the community		Tertiary prevention
Thinking about these three stages of prevention in turn should lead to a varied list of possible interventions. The second stage involves thinking in turn of the three main methods of prevention to add further interventions to the list of possible options: situational prevention reduces opportunities for crime, accidents or anti-social behaviour. It involves the management, design or manipulation of the environment to increase the effort needed to commit an offence, reduce the risks of an accident occurring, increase the risk of detection to an offender and reducing the rewards of criminal or anti-social behaviour social prevention is concerned with the prevention of criminal, anti-social or other risk taking behaviour that may cause community harm. It involves addressing the risk factors associated with offending and risk taking behaviour. It seeks to enhance protective factors designed to influence the attitudes and behaviour of those most at risk of committing offences and being involved in accidents rule or law enforcement is the setting and enforcing of rules to regulate behaviour. It includes the regulatory functions of local authorities, fire service, health boards, housing associations and police The approach should be used to generate as many options as possible. The purpose is to provide a structured way to think about problems. It may not be possible to think of a primary, secondary, tertiary or situational, social or law enforcement solution to every problem, but considering the various stages and methods should lead to a comprehensive and varied list of possible options. Some examples of possible interventions that could be arrived at by adopting the 'Stage and Method' approach are shown below. Note: some boxes contain more than one possible intervention and other boxes are blank. In reality, the list of possible solutions would be more comprehensive, only a few possible solutions are included here to illustrate the approach.
Objective: increase the reporting of domestic violence and reduce the level of repeat victimisation
	Situational		Social	Rule or law enforcement
Primary	Set up a scheme to encourage domestic violence victims to report incidents at health centres		Promote anti-violence education in schools 'Zero-tolerance' type poster campaign Publish a directory of resources for domestic violence victims	Change tenancy agreements so that in cases of domestic violence the perpetrator will be moved
Secondary	Install additional security measures to victim's house		Improve access to support services for victims of domestic violence	Adopt 'pro-arrest' policing policies
Tertiary	Let victims know when an assailant is released from prison		Anger management training with offenders Carry out risk assessment of all perpetrators of violence	Enforce licence conditions
Objective: reduce the number of hoax calls to the fire service
	Situational		Social	Rule or law enforcement
Primary	Map the locations of hoax calls		Include education on the consequences of hoax calls in the school curriculum Publicise the penalties for hoax calls in telephone boxes
Secondary	Install covert CCTV in 'hot spot' telephone boxes Consider re-siting telephone boxes from which repeat calls are repeatedly made		Target youth outreach work in 'hot spot' areas	If many of the hoax calls take place during school lunch hours, consider introducing a ban on using 'hot spot' telephone boxes at this time Encourage 'self-policing' by informing local community about problem telephone boxes
Tertiary			Confront hoax callers with the consequences of their behaviour, involving fire victims	Prosecute hoax callers

4.17 Stage Three involves rigorously appraising all options to choose the most appropriate ones from those identified at Stage Two. This should take into account research on what works:

4.18 The strategy should include the interventions that are most appropriate to the local problem(s). The appraisal should identify the most realistic and cost effective interventions, considering the action plan. Whenever possible, they should be supported by evidence of what works from other areas. A balanced programme of short-term and longer-term strategies should be agreed.

4.19 A written strategic plan should be produced when strategies for meeting each objective have been agreed, detailing the partnership's strategies for tackling community safety problems over a three year period. The plan should explain briefly the criteria used for selecting objectives, the nature of the problem to be addressed and the strategies for achieving the objectives. It should cover media management and identify information systems which ensure continued support for the partnership's work.

The Scottish Executive Crime Prevention Unit would be pleased to receive copies of partnerships' community safety strategic plans. This will allow central co-ordination of future development of community safety activity throughout Scotland, and help identify common issues and potential solutions that can be shared through the work of the unit's community safety adviser and seconded police superintendent.

Safer Communities in Scotland

4. Developing a Strategy