THEMES | Community Safety

Introduction

“By working together we will build safe communities and reduce fear”

Crime and disorder affects us all. Crime reduction and community safety has a key role in the process of social and economic regeneration in Derwentside. Crime and disorder, and the fear which they generate blights local communities. They cost local businesses and public services a great deal of money, and of course, make lives a misery for their victims.

Derwentside has one of the lowest levels of crime in the country. During the period 1999-2002 crime levels fell by an impressive 15%. This is testament to the effectiveness of partnership working between key agencies, the Police, the District and County Councils and a wide range of organisations and groups from the public, private, voluntary and community sectors right across the district. Much progress has been made towards tackling the local problems that can undermine the quality of life for everyone living, working and visiting the district.

However, we are not complacent. We are committed to working together to continue the downward pressure on crime and disorder, and will continue to set challenging targets to achieve further reductions in crime and disorder and real improvements to local quality of life.

Unfortunately, The fear of crime has been harder to tackle as some people will always feel unsafe as a consequence of their personal circumstances. Reducing actual levels of crime can have relatively little impact on levels of fear of crime, which are heavily influenced by the media and some visible symptoms of neighbourhood decline, not all of which appear in Derwentside.

The district wide fear of crime survey in 2001 has shown that people’s perception is that the level of crime in the district has remained unaltered during the audit period. This is something that the Partnership will seek to address during this next strategy.
 

The wider determinants have a direct impact on health, as well as an indirect impact through influencing our lifestyles e.g. in relation to smoking, whether or not we eat a healthy diet, and the amount of physical activity we take. Through the Derwentside Partnership and its Health Improvement Group we need to work together with public sector agencies, the business and voluntary sector and communities.

Our combined efforts are needed to tackle the wider determinants of health inequalities, such as poverty, poor education outcomes, unemployment, poor housing, homelessness and the problems of disadvantaged neighbourhoods, as well as to promote and support healthy lifestyles.