Consultation on draft Community Safety & Crime Reduction Strategy 2020-23

Summary findings from the consultation

 

The consultation exercise took the form of an online survey on B&HCC consultation portal; it was open between 21st Jan and 21st Feb 2020.

We provided summary aims and plans, and a link to whole draft strategy document and the strategic assessment if people wanted to see more information.  Respondents to the online consultation were taken sequentially through the different proposed priority areas, but could skip those topics they did not wish to look at.  For each proposed priority area we provided background information on that topic and asked:

o   Do you support our aims and plans?

o   Is there anything we haven’t considered, or do you have any further comments?

We also invited any general comments on the draft Strategy as a whole.  The link to the consultation was distributed by officers to subject steering groups,

1.    Respondents

There were 68 respondents via the consultation portal + 1 via email = 69

·     39 residents

·     10 community & voluntary sector orgs

·     3 ward councillors

·     2 visitors to the city

·     2 statutory organisations

·     1 local business

·     5 other

·     7 no information provided

Demographic data (not always complete) was provided by 39 residents as follows:

·     age range 24-82; mean age 49.1 years (n=37)

·     gender: 25 female; 12 male; 2 prefer not to say

·     gender identity: 36 identified with the sex they were assigned at birth; 3 prefer not to say

·     sexual orientation: 24 heterosexual; 4 lesbian/gay women; 2 gay men; 2 bisexual; 1 other; 7 prefer not to say

·     ethnic origin: 29 White British; 2 White other; 4 Black/mixed or other group; 4 prefer not to say

·     religion: 22 no particular religion; 4 atheist; 3 Christian; 3 other; 6 prefer not to say

·     LLTI: 27 had no long term limiting illness; 7 activities limited a little; 3 activities limited a lot; 3 prefer not to say

·     2 respondents were carers

 

 

2.    Number of respondents providing comments

Table 1

·        ASB and hate incidents was the area which the highest number of residents responded to (22), with serious violence receiving the next highest number (20).

·        Eight respondents who were not residents commented on hate incidents/crimes, 7 on VAWG and 6 on both serious violence and ASB. 

3.    Levels of support for the proposals

Table 2

·        Table 2 presents the number of people commenting on the seven draft areas, and shows the extent to which they report supporting the draft aims and plans.  In general, survey respondents supported the aims and plans in the draft strategy. 

·        Each of the seven topics received support from between 73% and 89% of respondents, with Exploitation and Violence against Women & Girls receiving the highest level of support.

·        Between 2% and 17% of respondents did not support the aims and plans.  17% (n=4) of respondent tended to or strongly disagreed with the aims and proposals around Prevent. The areas of challenging extremism and anti-social behaviour had 14% (n=3) and 13% (n=6) of respondents disagreeing respectively

 

4.    Themes from comments provided in each priority area

(roughly in order of frequency of mention)

Serious violence

·     Licensing issues; better control of licensed premises; fewer premises; businesses to invest in managing ASB, etc. related to their business

·     More police presence; police visibility; policing to tackle alcohol and drugs;

·     Support all vulnerable people, eg. drug/alcohol users, homeless; treatment services

·     Early prevention through youth work and schools; utilise neighbourhood youth workers’ local networks and good relationships; proactive mental health support, particularly for young males; reduce school exclusions

·     Diversionary work to prevent violence, but need to monitor for effectiveness

·     Include all ages, not just up to 25yrs

·     Targeted approach to protecting communities at risk of violence; improve police relations; avoid misgendering, discrimination, etc.; well trained staff, especially at point of first contact

·     More work with 3rd sector – they have greater flexibility; more resourcing for 3rd sector; partnership work in night time economy

·     Criminal justice for offenders

·     Appropriate information sharing between agencies; make reporting easy

·     Make reporting straight forward

Exploitation

·     Prevention/early intervention; support for young people, joint working with schools, parents, and neighbourhoods; parents may offer early information; need for more community premises; carefully manage fixed term exclusions, especially for those with additional needs/protected characteristics, and monitor effectiveness; support for neurodiverse young people, incl. less severe cases, and learning disabilities; support for Reboot.

·     Work to counter the impact on BAME young people of peer pressure, social media, and on resisting gang communities – encourage personal responsibility, personal choice, peer mentoring

·     Support for particular groups, incl. sex workers, drug users, people with learning disabilities; people working in particular occupations, eg. construction workers; holistic support; more resources for 3rd sector

·     Policing: quicker response to drug dealing; wider coverage across the city; targeted enforcement

·     Raise community awareness; publicity campaigns; offer simple signposting to services; training of licensed premises door staff to spot signs

·     Need to lift young people out of drug debt

·     Specific support for young homeless people (or at risk) who may be at risk of exploitation; generate trust with vulnerable young people as well as providing support.

·     Early intervention / publicity why knife carrying is not a good idea; stop and search with heavy penalties; knife amnesty

Domestic violence and abuse, sexual violence and other forms of violence against women and girls

·     Provide services for people of all genders

·     Greater resourcing of support services; don’t promise more than can be provided;

·     Education on consent and sexual violence at an early stage – shouldn’t be a hidden issue; anything to do with violence needs addressing in early life (preschool and school); involve schools and young people in disrupting the normalisation of abuse and violence.

·     Publicity to improve understanding by both victims and perpetrators of what constitutes abuse; lacking self-worth may prevent victims recognising abuse; widespread, simple public information campaigns

·     Improve access to services by BAME and LGBTQ+ communities – consultation needed; employ staff from different backgrounds; tailored support for BAME communities promoted via the community and voluntary sector;

·     Outreach work where people may find it difficult to go into new environments.  Hostel/temporary accommodation residents vulnerable and often have a history of rape or sexual abuse

·     Support for people with learning disabilities through the criminal justice process; training needed

·     More work to change the behaviour of perpetrators

·     More focus on emotional abuse

·     Informal education and support through generic youth work and work with women.

Anti-social behaviour

·     Understand and address root causes of ASB; holistic approach to homelessness; support rather than evict vs remove ASB tenants; effective way of managing encampments/rough sleeping needed;

·     Make good use of community provision and community assets; better links with statutory services; LATs (when working well) and housing services have an important role; involve residents/tenants and support them to tackle ASB; Reboot works best when linking with a network of community provision; greater use of and resources for mediation – less punitive approaches; need good communication between statutory and community sector/residents

·     Visible policing across the city (not just centre), in particularly to deter/address drug dealing; include patrols in parks (summer early evening)

·     Address ASB early in life; provide family support; diversionary peer support from within communities based on respect and mutual understanding; child first/offender second approach

·     A more robust enforcement response begging and drug dealing

·     Consider/manage any potential ASB associated with council events; manage ASB associated with the night time economy

·     Public want to know that reporting is worthwhile or they will no longer report

·     Address anti-social and illegal driving/parking behaviour, especially around schools

·     Recognise and deal with undiagnosed conditions

·     Increase the profile of the Community Safety Casework Team

Hate incidents and crimes

·     Scope: should include hate incidents against women; Gypsies, Roma, and Travellers need a particular focus – this group reported to be subject to daily discrimination and abuse, widespread hate speech and threats of violence particularly across social media; hate/abuse against older people needs including – older people are more likely to ‘suffer in silence’; BAME children with additional needs/health challenges can be subject to cultural stigma and need particular support;

·     Improve data monitoring and reporting of data; report crimes and incidents separately; collect/report subgroup disaggregation with overall hate group; keep a look out for Brexit/Coronavirus inspired incidents

Racial Harassment Forum has an important role.  Also community development workers and the third sector.  Statutory services should involve the RHF and other relevant community organisations, support them in responding to hate incidents and involve them in multi-agency groups; work should be led by communities

·     Hate incidents should be easy to report; people with learning disabilities need particular support and staff should receive training around learning disabilities

·     Actions need to sit beneath the headline pledges

·     Support for appropriate use of restorative justice

·     Funding for community-based advocacy and projects to build resilience

·     Does the way in which ‘hate’ is framed have a negative impact on tensions between communities?

·     There should be public education around diversity

·     Addressing poor behaviour related to alcohol will help reduce hate incidents

·     Outreach needed to target specific or vulnerable communities, eg. refugees, asylum seekers and vulnerable migrants

Challenging extremism

·     Make sure that reports turn into actions to address issues and avoid escalation; need to demonstrate how things will be taken forward

·     Mention right-wing extremism alongside other forms of extremism for clarity

·     Support ex-hostel residents who may be vulnerable to involvement in extremism

·     Concern over local adoption of national government approach which might seek to curtail political or ideological dissent

·     Intercultural events to encourage inclusion and integration

Prevent

·     Alienation and isolation of teenage boys is an important and underestimated factor.  Focusing on certain ideological factors can be attractive, and may be counter-productive.

·     Teachers and others working with young people need very good training and to work very carefully to avoid causing damage to communities caused by ignorance and stereotyping

·     Publicity campaign – recognise, report and support

·     Reporting concerns/incidents should be easy - need one main database which can be accessed by different agencies helping communication

·     Prevent Strategy does not work and can undermine organisations’ work with communities

General comments (omitting issues covered under separate topics)

·     More use-friendly language needed; less jargon; be clear how work will be carried out, by whom, etc.

More focus on prevention needed; need to address broader societal  issues such as parking and drugs; visible issues associated with the street environment, eg. street community and rubbish undermine the strategy as a whole; drug problems are escalating

·     More conversations with grassroots organisations; lack of community engagement; strategy is trying to fix a problem – there’s a need to listen to communities and those affected and promote their wellbeing; communities are an asset

·     Safety is an important part of an overall inclusive city; appears comprehensive and well thought out; really important work; thorough piece of work – well done to all involved 2 Updates on progress sought; use Twitter

·     Information sharing is a real problem, particularly with the police, causing delays and exacerbating risk; don’t be unnecessarily held back by GDPR

·     Stability of resources; more funding is needed for support services to prevent people from becoming vulnerable and continues to support them as required, eg. around health or addiction issues; where is the funding coming from for the work in this Strategy?

·     Stable housing creates cohesive communities; homelessness drives need across many strands of the strategy

·     More police presence in neighbourhoods; neighbourhoods are suffering burglaries, threatening incidents and anti-social behaviour – how will this be addressed?

·     Strategy same as last time – pledges and promises which are ineffectual and make little difference

·     Work in schools should be prioritised

·     More joint working between the police and the council

·     Keep processes as simple as possible; make it easy for people to access services they need

·     Improve the operation of Community Payback – make more visible,  helping to provide community confidence

·     More use of CCTV