Home Office Good Practice Seminars
Violent Crime Seminar
Workshop 3
Multi-Agency Strategies: the holistic approach to tackling gun and gang crime
Insp Mark Powell, Manchester Action Against Gangs
Key points from the presentation
"Police wage war on gun crime" Headline in the Telegraph in 1993 yet still very topical.
A Targeted Policing Initiative grant in 2000 allowed the police, city council and probation service to collaborate on a research project into the nature and extent of gun crime in Manchester.
Manchester Multi Agency Gang Strategy (MMAGS) was a multi-agency response to the findings of the research, forming a partnership between Greater Manchester Police, Manchester City Council, Youth Offending Team, and the Probation Service to address gun crime.
MMAGS is a 27 point plan encompassing the crime, social, health and economic implications of gun crime and including interventions around family support, education, training and youth development as well as law enforcement tactics and enhanced release licence conditions for offenders.
MMAGS adopted an IRT model (identification, referral, & treatment) where the following the stages were followed: sensitise local agencies to their role in gang culture in gun crime, establish a clear referral procedure, undertake a risk assessment, and develop a range of treatment options.
It is important to intervene early i.e. pre-teens in order divert young people away from crime.
Only 1 in 140 people who were victims/witnesses of gun crime were willing to give evidence in court
Key points from the discussion
The importance of adopting a multi-agency approach that has a clear protocol for information sharing.
The importance to rationalise funding so that energy is not focussed on constantly looking for money to continue the project.
Importance of engaging the public and ensuring the community is represented on the project board. However, it is also important that the selection of the community representative follows a transparent process so that the whole community feels involved and owns the 'problem'.
It was also stressed that we should be open to new explanations of violent crime e.g. how a significant number of violent men have experienced bereavement as children.
Download a full copy of the PowerPoint presentation (981 Kb)
Further information about Manchester Multi-Agency Gang Strategy tel: 0161 856 4160
Last update: 28/01/04