Rural Crime
The Rural White Paper & Its Implications for Crime Reduction
The Government published its Rural White Paper, "Our Countryside: The Future – A Fair Deal for Rural England", on 28 November 2000. Although the paper covers the whole range of countryside issues including housing, schools, health, business and transport, it does make mention of crime in the countryside with safer communities being one of 15 proposed rural indicators to add to the Countryside Agency’s annual State of the Countryside report. Although not made explicit, many of the proposed initiatives will have a bearing on the reduction of crime in rural areas.
In the introduction and summing up of the situation in rural England, the paper states that “despite perceptions, the incidence of crime in rural areas is still very much less than in towns and cities”. Chapter 4, "Modern Rural Services – the issues", looks at this in more depth:
"There is increasing concern about levels of property crime and related issues, including drugs and youth offending. Crime and the fear of crime, especially for the elderly and those living in isolated places, damage quality of life."
Links to existing initiatives
Initiatives to combat this concern have already been introduced but are being built upon to tackle specific problems encountered by rural communities. Alongside the local partnerships created under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and schemes such as Neighbourhood Watch and Farm Watch, rural communities are being encouraged to:
use Neighbourhood Wardens through the Home Office/DETR Neighbourhood Wardens Grant scheme;
apply for CCTV funding through local partnerships
run rural projects on specific topics through initiatives such as Violence Against Women and Race Equality Schemes.
The Targeted Policing Initiative is helping rural forces to develop improved ways of tackling local concentrations of crime and funding is being provided for extra officers in rural areas.
Social exclusion and neighbourhood deprivation should be addressed through a number of initiatives depending on identified level of deprivation. The Indices of Deprivation 2000 will raise understanding of the complex nature of deprivation, including rural aspects like access to services. They will also be used across Government to target policies and allocate resources to the most deprived areas.
A number of rural areas will benefit from the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund (NRF) which will allocate £800m over the next three years. NRF will help local authorities in the most deprived areas improve services for poorer people and deliver the national targets set out in the cross-cutting spending review on Government Intervention in Deprived Areas (GIDA). The NRF aims to improve housing, raise school standards, reduce crime & improve health in deprived areas.
Under the New Deal for Communities, an extra £210m over the next 3 years will help to implement the Action Plan for Neighbourhood Renewal to be published by the Social Exclusion Unit. Funds will be used to establish the Centre for Neighbourhood Renewal which will promote best practice and improve the skills and expertise of those involved.
Drug misuse
The misuse of drugs in rural communities is to be addressed by increases in funding for treatment. The White Paper pledges that “Every major rural police station will have a drugs worker to help to break the link between crime and drugs. The National Treatment Agency will ensure that national standards apply to drug treatment services and that access to services is fair”
Market town regeneration
Chapter 7 of the White Paper details measures to address market town regeneration. £37m over three years will be provided within the Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) rural programme to fund regeneration for market towns in or near Rural Priority Areas. With other funds this will amount to a £100m programme to create new job opportunities, new workspace, restored high streets, improved amenities and transport facilities and help with community needs. The White Paper details how towns will be selected as part of this programme. £5m will also be provided to help 1000 towns and villages to create local plans to meet their local needs.
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