A new national billboard campaign encouraging young people and communities to stand together against knife crime was launched today by Home Secretary Jacqui Smith. The new interactive campaign will run in phases throughout the next three months in urban, residential areas across England and Wales, including the ten areas involved in the Tackling Knives Action Programme. Young people will be encouraged to show their support by adding their own anti-knife photo pledges to the Bebo website. Their images will then be included on later versions of the posters in the series which will be unveiled by the Home Secretary next month. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said:  “I want young people to stand united with us in the fight to tackle knife crime and send a clear message that weapons won’t be tolerated on our streets. Over 60,000 young people have visited the “It Doesn’t Have to Happen” page on Bebo and the site has over 6,000 friends. The vast majority of young people are honest and law-abiding and it is crucial that we all spread the message more widely that carrying a knife is not acceptable. We can’t do this alone - we need the help of local communities to make a stand.”
The new billboards are the latest step in the Government’s £3 million national marketing campaign, “It Doesn’t Have to Happen”, which was launched in May this year.

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3 November 2008
© Home Office (National)

Neighbourhood wardens need to be clear about their ‘brand’ to convince funders and the public of their value, one of Channel 4’s ‘secret millionaires’ warned this week. Speaking at New Start’s Connecting Communities conference, marketing millionaire Carl Hopkins said wardens were unsung heroes – but needed to be clearer about their role.Wardens provide a visible presence to reassure communities that did not exist in the 1980s, Mr Hopkins told New Start. He spent ten days patrolling the streets of Easington, Durham, with the town’s neighbourhood wardens for the Channel 4 programme. ‘We all know the police are there to enforce the law,’ he said. ‘They’re not warm and cuddly, let’s be honest. They could be seen as threatening. ‘A lot of people on the estates where I grew up have something to hide, so the last people they’re going to talk to are the cops. The wardens, if they’re the ears, the eyes, the friends of the community, then with regular and frequent appearances on the streets they should become trusted.’

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29 October 2008
© NewStart

This report looks at how Community Philosophy can open community conversations within and between generations about ‘nuisance’ behaviours and the fear of crime. Community Philosophy is a way of mutual learning which emphasises the importance of questioning and enquiry in the development of understanding. This study explores Community Philosophy in an intergenerational and residential environment, rather than the more usual context of schools and young people only. Download: http://www.jrf.org.uk/bookshop/eBooks/2251-community-people-communication.pdf

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28 October 2008
© Joseph Rowntree Foundation

This short booklet explains the Government’s plans for countering violent extremism to protect the security of the UK in the long term. To be successful, we need to undermine extremist ideology, strengthen our institutions, support individuals who are susceptible to radicalisation, help our communities resist violent extremism and address the grievances on which extremists prey. Local partners, particularly police and local authorities, have a vital role to play in achieving the strategy’s objectives. The Guide for local partners gives detailed guidance to support those working in this field, including the importance of work with young people and the need to include schools, colleges, children’s and youth services in strategic planning and local delivery for work on preventing violent extremism. If you have any questions or would like to discuss the role of children’s services or schools in this area, please contact community.cohesion@dcsf.gsi.gov.uk

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27 October 2008
© DCSF

The National Offender Management Service (NOMS) has announced its commitment to further improve partnership work with the third sector. A newly published report ‘Working with the third sector to reduce reoffending 2008-2011′ is based on the feedback from a public consultation held with third sector organisations earlier this year. This report sets out principles for our work with the third sector to reduce reoffending and protect the public. It contains specific commitments and actions to support these principles and to reduce barriers to third sector involvement. This includes targeted activity to support the role of community, black and minority ethnic, faith-based and women’s organisations. The document supports the recently-published Ministry of Justice third sector strategy, and will underpin future work with third sector organisations, including support for the government commitment to Baroness Neuberger’s review of volunteering across the criminal justice system.

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15 October 2008
© Cabinet Office

Mayor Boris Johnson today called for smarter solutions to gang violence and urged key anti crime organisations to help him tackle gang related youth crime in London. The Mayor spoke at the Gangs Guns and Weapons Practitioners Forum annual seminar, where he met with a range of representatives including the Home Office, Youth Justice Board and Metropolitan Police, ex-offenders, young people and youth workers to discuss solutions to violent crime. The Mayor voiced concern about vulnerable young people being lured into criminal gangs and promised hard hitting new plans to tackle crime would be announced shortly in his Youth Violence Strategy. Mayor Boris Johnson said, “I am filled with despair every time I read about another fatal stabbing or shooting. It is a tragedy that 27 teenagers have become victims of knife and gun crime this year. Enough is enough - I am adamant that this violence must stop. “Years of neglect has led to some disaffected young people looking to criminal gangs for the support and guidance they would normally find at home and at school. We need to use every resource available to reach out to these troubled teenagers. Every young person carrying weapons needs to be clear about the potentially horrific consequences of their actions. Equally every vulnerable teenager needs opportunities and support to turn their backs on criminal gangs.

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16 October 2008
© LONDON

Young Londoners explained their fears about violent crime to Met officers at the MPA’s Equal Opportunities and Diversity Board (EODB) on 25 September 2008. Kirsten Hearn, chair of the EODB, said: “I welcome and thank the young people from the North East London College, Hillingdon Youth Service and the MPS Corporate Advisory Group who have come here to tell us their fears and concerns about youth crime in London. Knife related crimes are the Met’s top priority and I also thank DAC Alf Hitchcock, who leads on this issue, for taking part in our debate. Only by working together can young people and police find solutions to the terrible violence that is blighting our communities.” The young people’s concerns were wide ranging and included being afraid to go out at night, worries about disproportionality in the use of stop and search and the effectiveness of search arches.

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26 September 2008
© Metropolitan Police Authority (National)

A crime reduction charity in Scotland has called for a greater focus on community sentences and bail supervision to reduce offending after the prison population reached record levels. The comments from Sacro follow remarks made by the Scottish Prison Service’s chief executive Mike Ewart. He said prisons were in a state of emergency because of overcrowding. The prison population has reached 8,137, although the capacity is only 6,625. Mr Ewart called for a cap on the number of those being incarcerated. Sacro said short custodial sentences were ‘next to useless’, arguing there was a wealth of evidence to support this view. In 2005/06, sentences of six months or less accounted for 83% of prison terms handed down, while the average time served was 24 days. ‘This is not long enough to help prisoners address their offending behaviour but it is long enough for them to break ties with their families and communities and build new, less positive ties within prison,’ Sacro said.

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24 September 2008
© NewStart

Andy Marlow, Member of Youth Parliament for Birmingham, leads a campaign called See the Good behind the Hood, which is one of three campaigns currently being run by the UK Youth Parliament in the West Midlands. Their website can be found at www.good-hood.co.uk and the aim is to promote positive images of young people in the media, as they believe that young people are being misrepresented in the press. For example, the main image of youth shown by the media seems to be one of drunkenness, drug taking, knife crime etc. However, consider the following: Knife crime has fallen by 15.7% in the last 2 years according to the metropolitan police survey. The Prince’s Trust has found that: only 9% of young people aged 16-25 have spent time in a gang; only 2% carry knives; only 3% regularly use drugs. There was recently a 6% fall in the rate of young people offending in the West Midlands, according to the Liberal Democrats.

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22 September 2008
© VCS Matters

A new website which will enable Londoners to get crime figures for their neighbourhood was launched today by Mayor of London, Boris Johnson and Deputy Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Paul Stephenson. The new ‘crime mapping’ website means for the first time Londoners will be able to get information about crime levels in their neighbourhoods and access local crime prevention and safety advice. The website provides a set of interactive maps, showing numbers and rates of crime, and links to other sites including Safer Neighbourhoods Team web pages. The site also compares the crime levels in local neighbourhoods to the London average.

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03 September 2008
© London Development Agency