Safer Kirklees

Work on crime focuses on personal crime (e.g. violence and robbery) and property offences (e.g. burglary and vehicle offences). In common with other areas in the Partnership Plan, work focuses on prevention and reducing opportunities for crime by focusing on the people (offender and victim) and targeting places where crimes are concentrated.

Reducing Re-Offending is a key element within the crime theme, with a particular focus on two key area;

• Preventing individuals from entering into the Criminal Justice System
• Supporting individuals in the Criminal Justice System to reduce the frequency and severity of further offending with the aim of abstinence from recidivism.

Drugs and Alcohol interventions relate to the use and supply of drugs and alcohol. Examples of this work include;

• Working with businesses to reduce alcohol related violence and irresponsible sales
• Working with offender management services to tackle drug related crime
• Developing links with health providers to address long term harm

What will we do?

Some of the key elements of this approach include;

• Strong focus on crime prevention through tactics including increase awareness, target hardening and secured by design approaches.
• Increased deterrent presence in emerging hot spots through deployment of partnership staff and community resources including neighbourhood watch.
• Offender focus through the delivery of the reducing reoffending strategy
• Strong emphasis on victim focused working to repair harm
• Development of a Kirklees Drugs and Alcohol Strategy that acknowledges the impact substance misuse has across all 4 themes within the Partnership Plan

For the purpose of the Partnership Plan, Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB) is behaviour which causes "harassment, alarm or distress" to individuals and communities. ASB can be broken into personal (e.g. neighbour noise, threats and intimidation), nuisance (e.g. rowdy behaviour and speeding vehicles) and environmental (e.g. graffiti, litter and fly-tipping). ASB can be directed at individual, the wider community and tends to be concentrated in particular locations (increasingly including the internet). Where ASB is not addressed, it tends to have a serious negative impact on wellbeing in communities and can often escalate in severity to serious and or gang violence.

What will we do?

Through the delivery of the Kirklees ASB Strategy and Violence Reduction Partnership there will be a focus on preventing and reducing ASB and serious violence/ gang affiliation through;

• Education interventions to develop responsible citizenship throughout people's lives
• Community Engagement to ensure ASB is not tolerated and is tackled through active citizenship
• Training and development for front line officers and community contacts to ensure they have the knowledge to identify risk factors at the earliest opportunity
• Effective use of tools and powers and area-based problem-solving approaches to address persistent ASB, Gang / serious violence
• Development of the Kirklees Violence Reduction Partnership and Public Health approach to tackle serious violence in Kirklees
• Developing effective links to ensure a coordinate response to those individuals that move from acts of ASB into serious violence and Organised Crime Groups (OCGs)
• Effective links to more specialist services to deal with underlying issues such as mental health and substance misuse
• Where necessary, efficient and effective prosecution to ensure people are held to account for their actions and to provide a message that such behaviours will not be tolerated

This theme covers a wide range of areas which require strong relationships between community safety and safeguarding partners and communities. It identifies and addresses serious harm at the earliest opportunity, ideally by preventing it in the first place. Serious harm covers a wide range of areas such as:

• Exploitation, including criminal and child sexual exploitation
• Domestic Abuse
• Female Genital Mutilation
• Hate crime
• Modern slavery and human trafficking
• Preventing Violent Extremism and Community Tensions

Work under this area requires excellent co-ordination at both a strategic and operational level to protect victims and disrupt and target perpetrators as rigorously as possible.

What will we do?

• Focus on prevention through a combination of education / awareness of risk and communicating a clear message about partnership work with communities.
• Working with communities to improve victim confidence to report issues and improve general awareness of the signs of possible harm.
• Comprehensive and coordinated training for front line workers to have the awareness of what to report and the confidence and drive to take responsibility for reporting issues.
• Effective operational links between partners to ensure there is effective case management in place both to ensure offenders are held to account for their actions and victims are appropriately safeguarded.
• Strategic links in place between Community Safety Partners and the Safeguarding Boards for adults and children to ensure joined up approach is in place.
• Development of a clear and robust referral pathway for partners and front line officers to raise concerns of significant harm with children and young people. This ensures that risk and vulnerability are addressed through effective cooperation and partnership working between agencies and services.

Place based working is one of the core elements of the Councils Corporate Plan. It is based on the view that citizens and communities are best placed to know their own local challenges and strengths they have within them. Feeling safe is consistently identified as one the most important priorities for residents to enhance their quality of life. If we are to develop interventions that are sustainable and take account of what works locally, it is vital that local people are at the heart of this through building Community resilience.

In terms of the physical appearance, often seemingly lower level issues can indicate the general decline of a neighbourhood. There is typically an escalation into more serious issues. Therefore, if issues such as graffiti, flytipping and litter do not get addressed, not only will it make an area look uncared for, it can also serve as a signal that residents don't care and acts as a barrier for any participation in neighbourhood involvement.

A cohesive Kirklees is one where there is a common vision and a sense of belonging for all communities where the diversity of people's different backgrounds and circumstances is appreciated. Those from different backgrounds (including those who have migrated to Kirklees from overseas) should have similar life opportunities. Strong and positive relationships are developed between people from different backgrounds and circumstances.

What will we do?

Some of the main areas of work in this theme to be delivered are;

• Work collectively to secure good quality Housing and Neighbourhoods
• Coordinate activity to maintain and improve high standards in Street Scene provision (clean & green)
• Provide opportunities for community connectedness, and coordinate intergenerational work, breaking barriers at a young age and perceptions of unfairness
• Lead on collaborative work to ensure the successful resettlement of Syrian migrants in Kirklees
• Using an asset-based approach, work in partnership with the voluntary and community sector to ensure communities are at the heart of design and delivery