DTIC ADA499518: Tackling Violent Crime: Findings from Regional Workshops with 12 Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships

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1. REPORT DATE 2. REPORT TYPE 3. DATES COVERED
2009 final 00-00-2009 to 00-00-2009
4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE 5a. CONTRACT NUMBER
Tackling violent crime findings from regional workshops with 12 crime
5b. GRANT NUMBER
and disorder reduction partnerships
5c. PROGRAM ELEMENT NUMBER
6. AUTHOR(S) 5d. PROJECT NUMBER
Emma Disley; Tom Ling; Jennifer Rubin; Matthew Wilkins
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5f. WORK UNIT NUMBER
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RAND Corporation,1776 Main Street,Santa Monica,CA,90407 REPORT NUMBER
TR-698-NAO
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14. ABSTRACT
In 2008 the Home Office published an Action Plan for Tackling Violence, setting out the Government’s agenda to reduce the
harm caused by violent crime. Much of the responsibility for delivering this work lies with local Crime and Disorder Reduction
Partnerships (CDRPs) in England and Community Safety Partnerships in Wales. These are local, statutory partnerships
responsible for tackling crime and anti-social behaviour. The NAO reported on the Home Office’s efforts to tackle violence in a
2008, finding that more needed to be done to address barriers to effective multi-agency working at the local level. The NAO
commissioned RAND Europe to facilitate a series of practitioner workshops across England, to further understand these local
barriers. Findings from the workshops indicate that whilst tackling violence was on the agenda of all of the participating
CDRPs, practitioners called for greater involvement and data sharing by health agencies -- particularly accident and emergency
departments. The importance of developing analytical capacity within CDRPs, in order to better understand the nature of
violence, was stressed by workshop participants. The workshops suggest that CDRPs are increasingly realising the need to
proactively manage and engage with the media, to address public misconceptions about the level and risk of violence in their
communities. This report will be of interest to all those involved in the tackling violence agenda, including Government
Ministers and policy makers, those working in Regional Government Offices, practitioners from criminal justice agencies,
health services, local government and local councils.
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Tackling Violent Crime
Findings from regional workshops
with 12 Crime and Disorder
Reduction Partnerships
Emma Disley, Tom Ling, Jennifer Rubin
With
Matthew Wilkins
Prepared for the National Audit Office
EUROPE
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Preface
This report and the workshops on which it is based were commissioned by the UK
National Audit Office (NAO) to follow-up and further explore the findings of their earlier
report Reducing the risk of violent crime1 which examined the Home Office’s efforts to
tackle violence.
Much of the delivery of the Government’s tackling violence agenda is undertaken by Local
Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships. These Partnerships are responsible for
understanding local levels and trends in violence, for adopting local policies and measures
to reduce violence (including gun crime, hate crime, and domestic violence) and for
developing arrangements to manage individuals at risk of committing violence. This report
documents the findings from six regional workshops involving participants from twelve
CDRPs held across the country during October and November 2008. The aim of the
workshops was to examine the barriers local practitioners face in their work to reduce
violent crime, and how these might be overcome. They were organised by the
commissioning team at the NAO and designed, led and analysed collaboratively by RAND
Europe researchers and the NAO.
Conducting workshops to follow up and further explore findings from an earlier report is a
novel approach for the NAO. Although the broad aim of the workshops was clear from the
outset, the design of the workshops was deliberately flexible to enable them to be
responsive in covering the specific interests and concerns of different CDRPs. For this
reason the workshops were diverse in structure, participation and content. This report,
therefore, does not claim representativeness across all CDRPs; rather, it draws key messages
from the discussions and debates amongst workshop participants, shedding light on some
of the challenges faced by local practitioners and highlighting successes and promising
practices.
This report will be of interest to all those involved in the tackling violence agenda,
including Government Ministers and policy makers, those working in Regional
Government Offices, practitioners from criminal justice agencies, health services, local
government and local councils.
RAND Europe is an independent, not-for-profit, policy-research organisation whose
mission is to help improve policy and decision making through research and analysis. This

1 National Audit Office, 1998.
report has been peer reviewed in accordance with RAND’s quality assurance standards.
The views expressed in this report are the authors’ alone and not those of the NAO.
For more information about RAND Europe or this document, please contact:
Dr Jennifer Rubin.
Director, Emerging Areas
RAND Europe
Westbrook Centre, Milton Road
Cambridge CB4 1YG
United Kingdom

[email protected]
Tel: [phone].

ii
Contents

Preface...........................................................................................................................i

Executive Summary......................................................................................................v

Acknowledgements.......................................................................................................x

CHAPTER 1 Introduction....................................................................................1

1.1 Methods and approach.......................................................................................2

1.2 Participants’ feedback on the workshops............................................................2

1.3 The structure and content of this report.............................................................3

CHAPTER 2 Partnership working........................................................................4

2.1 Description of the current landscape..................................................................4

2.2 Key issues and barriers relating to partnership working.......................................6

2.3 Suggested actions to respond to barriers relating to partnership working............8

CHAPTER 3 Data sharing.....................................................................................9

3.1 Description of the current landscape................................................................10

3.2 Key issues and barriers relating to data sharing.................................................10

3.3 Suggested actions to respond to barriers relating to data sharing.......................12

CHAPTER 4 The analytical capacity of CDRPs..................................................13

4.1 Description of the current landscape................................................................13

4.2 Key issues and barriers relating to analytical capacity........................................13

4.3 Suggested actions to respond to barriers relating to analytical capacity..............14

CHAPTER 5 Funding.........................................................................................15

5.1 Description of the current landscape................................................................15

5.2 Key issues and barriers relating to allocation of funding....................................15

5.3 Suggested actions to respond to barriers relating to funding.............................16

CHAPTER 6 Perceptions, managing the media and branding.............................18

6.1 Description of the current landscape................................................................18

6.2 Key issues and barriers relating to improving public perceptions......................18
iii
6.3 Suggested actions to respond to barriers relating to public perceptions............19

CHAPTER 7 Learning about good practice.........................................................21

7.1 Description of the current Landscape..............................................................21

7.2 Key issues and barriers relating to learning about good practice.......................21

7.3 Suggested actions to respond to barriers relating to good practice....................22

CHAPTER 8 Progress against the Home Office Action Plan for Tackling

Violence.........................................................................................23

8.1 Description of the current landscape...............................................................23

8.2 Key issues and barriers relating to the Home Office Action Plan.....................24

8.3 Suggested actions to respond to barriers relating to the Home Office

Action Plan.....................................................................................................25

CHAPTER 9 Conclusions...................................................................................27
Reference List............................................................................................................28
iv
Executive Summary
In 2008 the Home Office published an Action Plan for Tackling Violence, setting out the
Government’s agenda to reduce the harm caused by violent crime, especially the most
serious forms of violence. Much of the responsibility for delivering the aims set out in the
Action Plan lies with local Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships (CDRPs) in
England and Community Safety Partnerships in Wales. These are local, statutory
partnerships2 responsible for tackling crime and anti-social behaviour.
The NAO reported on the Home Office’s efforts to tackle violence in a 2008 report
entitled Reducing the risk of violent crime, a key finding of which was that more needed to
be done to address barriers which prevented effective multi-agency working among CDRPs
and other partners at the local level.
In order to discuss these barriers and further explore local successes the NAO
commissioned a series of workshops across England for local practitioners involved in work
to tackle violent crime. The workshops represent a pragmatic approach to investigation.
They allowed information to be gathered from practitioners who had extensive experience
and knowledge of the issues, and for the capture of rich and detailed findings which
provided insight into local, ‘on the ground’ context. The limitations of this approach,
however, are that the findings reflect the particular perspectives and experiences of those
people who attended each of the workshops, which carries the risk that wider perspectives
are neglected.
Findings from the workshops are broadly in line with those from the NAO report, with
the workshops enabling a richer and more nuanced understanding of the challenges
practitioners faced in implementing the Government’s plans for tackling violent crime.
The following are the main findings from the six workshops conducted with 12 CDRPs in
England.
Partnership working and strong relationships were prevalent amongst participating
CDRPs
Discussions during the workshops indicate that partnership working is embedded in most
of the participating areas, and that there are strong relationships between agencies,
especially the police and local councils.

2 The local partnerships include the local police service, police authority, local authority, fire and rescue service,
and NHS Primary Care Trust.
v