In many areas crime prevention is a relatively new subject, particularly on developing strategies to tackle the risk factors associated with offending behaviour and it requires leadership which is prepared to be innovative. Crime prevention partnerships need quality information at a number of levels. The workshop pointed out that it is not always easy to share sensitive information between different agencies. However, it is vital that ways are found of overcoming the issue of confidentiality if the partnership is to have the information at its disposal to plan its work with confidence. The quality of much local crime information currently available leaves much to be desired.
Good decision taking and good planning is informed by relevant topical quality information.
It is important to remember that information covers not only the numbers of crimes but details of when and how and where they were committed and details about offenders. Information gathering also needs to take account of what is going on in a particular area and the services being delivered to communities which are relevant to the crime prevention effort. The workshop also spent time discussing how important it was get the right partners onto the planning group. Too many partnerships for one reason or another either omitted key players or the agencies round the table were not represented by sufficiently powerful officers. Essentially partnerships needed representatives who can make things happen for the partnership and within their own agencies, who are capable of unlocking budgets and who were prepared to break new ground.