Burglary
Strategic Development Projects in the Yorkshire and the Humber, East Midlands and Eastern regions.
This report summarises the findings of a project evaluation of 21 Strategic Development Projects (SDPs) in the East Midlands, East, and Yorkshire and the Humber Government Office regions. There appeared a varied project success level, with only a 6 projects associated with significant burglary reductions in their target areas. Further, there was little support for a prevention strategy focused on preventing repeat victimisation.
Title: Strategic Development Projects in the Yorkshire and the Humber, East Midlands and Eastern regions
Author: Research Development and Statistics
Series: Home Office Online Report 41/04
Number of pages: 43
Date published: July 2004
Patterns of successful projects included:
those which were not isolated from other area programmes, or the crime trends in the area
those interventions mutually supporting each other, where a problem-solving approach to implementation was adopted
those where partnership involvement was maximised, making use of relevant skills already employed by the partners.
The Strategic Development Projects were comprehensive strategies for burglary reduction in 2 senses:
as part of the Reducing Burglary Initiative (RBI), they aimed for a national comprehensive approach to preventing burglary
they were community initiatives intended to reduce the burglary rate of the target area.
Anticipated components of the SDP intervention
It was expected that the SDPs would share a number of organisational characteristics and would set about tackling local burglary problems in particular ways. These 'ideal' characteristics were taken from previous experience of burglary prevention projects and included:
Strategic planning
The chances of project success seem to be enhanced if targets and objectives are set within local burglary patterns and trends.
Projects as packages of measures
Successful projects comprised of integrated packages of measures in 2 senses.
Projects were not isolated either from crime trends occurring in the wider area or from other crime reduction and area-regeneration programmes.
Interventions that reinforced themselves seemed more successful. This was especially noticeable for projects that reinforced their delivery of security and target-hardening with publicity and other 'stakeholder-engagement' programmes.
Crime prevention techniques and measures
A significant investment in situational crime prevention (SCP) measures delivered to the community was more likely to be part of successful projects than 'enforcement' or measures to tackle offender behaviour.
Crime prevention tactics
A targeted approach – represented here by the strategy of reducing repeat victimisation – would not seem to have been successful, largely because of difficulties in identifying target residences.
Action planning
It may be that the less-risk projects chose approaches with which they were familiar, rather than the more innovative approaches. This could provide reason for the project's success and failure.
Problem-solving
The more successful projects were those that had the resolve to look for alternative solutions to implementation problems rather than to persist with their original plans.
Managing delivery
The most effective organisational structure would appear to be one that deploys partner agencies in ways that are fit-for-purpose.
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