Crime Prevention
Your Practical Guide To Crime Prevention Community
This part of the booklet looks at how you can make your community safer. There are a lot of different things you can do to prevent crime in your street or neighbourhood.
You might like to join a Neighbourhood Watch scheme, or become a Special Constable. Or, you could do some volunteering, perhaps with older people to help them feel safer (for example by fitting door locks or security chains for them), or with younger people to help them to use their time constructively.
But what works best in making communities safer tends to be a combination of lots of different things. You could ask local organisations, or the police, what isn't being done in your area, and try to do that instead.
Neighbourhood Watch
This is when all the houses in a certain area (for example on a street or estate) agree to look out for one another. You keep an eye out for anything suspicious, and tell one another or the police. Neighbourhood Watch can be a good way to help people feel more secure in their neighbourhoods, but can be hard to set up where they are most needed.
Special Constables
Special Constables are trained and uniformed police volunteers who patrol in their local community.
Neighbourhood wardens and street wardens
A lot of councils are setting up neighbourhood warden schemes, where local people patrol their community looking out for anything suspicious, giving people information and just being a presence on the street.
Youth action groups
Youth action groups see young people as part of the solution in tackling crime in the community, not just as part of the problem. They work with young people on issues that interest them, and help them develop their own skills and activities.
Other Volunteering
If none of these options suits you, there are a lot of other opportunities to do useful things locally. Your local voluntary services council will be able to tell you what opportunities there are locally. You can get details from their National Association of Councils for Voluntary Service (NACVS), or from your local council. There is also often good information about neighbourhood volunteering opportunities at your local library.
For more information visit:
Contact your council or local police station for more information on similar schemes.
You can also get copies of the following Home Office leaflets.
'Welcome to Neighbourhood Watch'
'A problem solving approach to crime prevention: a guide for Neighbourhood Watch Schemes'
Last update: 16/09/03