Making the borough safer and helping people to feel safe in Hackney
Cracking down on crime
Hackney Police and the Council work very closely to tackle and prevent crime in the borough. Seventy seven per cent of residents now have confidence in Hackney’s Police, according to the British Crime Survey, a rise of 55 per cent in less than two years.
The survey also reveals that crime in Hackney has dropped 39.5 per cent over five years, the second largest drop of all London boroughs. Last year, there were ten thousand fewer victims of crime in Hackney than five years ago.
In 2008/09, gun crime was reduced by over 37 per cent and knife crime by 17 per cent. Youth crime also fell by 10 per cent. Satisfaction with the Police and the Fire Brigade are six per cent above the London average.
Tackling anti-social behaviour
The Council’s newly-created anti-social behaviour team, partly funded by Team Hackney, has brought the Police and Council officers together to ensure smoother referrals between agencies. Community Advisory Panels (CAPs) are now up and running in all wards and working with the local Police Safer Neighbourhoods Team to set local priorities for tackling community safety issues.
Community cohesion
In 2008 the Safer, Cleaner Partnership commissioned new work to tackle serious violent crime, reduce re-offending and reduce domestic violence. Since early 2009, the community has been working with a dedicated prevention officer to reduce the threat of violent extremism. A dedicated Police officer has been working with the charity, MIND, on mental health problems and crime.
Encouragingly, over three quarters of the borough’s residents agree that Hackney is a place where people from different backgrounds get on well together.
Breaking the cycle of crime
Our multi-agency mobile intervention team, based with Hackney’s youth offending team, has succeeded in reducing the number of young people entering the criminal justice system for the first time, and the number of young offenders who re-offend.
The team has been working with the Police and the community and voluntary sectors to identify and intervene with young people at risk of becoming involved in crime, as both victims and gang members. This programme has been extended until September 2009.
A new Youth Crime Strategy was agreed by partners, with involvement of young people through the youth offending team’s Youth Board. The aim is to support young people to move away from crime and to stop those already in the criminal justice system from re-offending.
Safeguarding children and adults
A high priority for all of us is safeguarding vulnerable people. This is reflected in partners’ business plans and the work of the Safeguarding Adults Board (SAB), with its independent Chair. The SAB has a vital role in ensuring that the vision and policies to safeguard adults are translated into high quality practice through its annual report and action plan. The Board’s membership has been strengthened by additional senior management representation from the Metropolitan Police, Hackney Homes, and the Council’s housing needs and community safety services.
New arrangements were also put in place to strengthen the management of the City and Hackney Safeguarding Children Board. Working intensively with families at home has helped us to reduce the number of looked after children in Hackney from 470 to 330.
Reclaiming Social Work, a new approach to children’s social care, was introduced by the Council in July 2007. This has helped to reduce bureaucracy and achieve improved decisionmaking in child protection, allowing social workers more time with children and families.
Reducing road accidents
Hackney is on course to achieve our target of reducing by half the number of adults and children who are killed or seriously injured on our roads, by 2010.
Last year 1,028 children and 235 adults received Bikeabilty training, which teaches basic cycle skills and general road safety. In 2008, we started the Junior Road Safety programme and 19 primary schools are now taking part in this initiative.
Initiatives such as ‘Walk Once a Week’, ‘Walk on Wednesday’ and ‘Walk to School’ have increased the number of children walking to school from 57 per cent to 75 per cent, and four schools have achieved an increase in pupils walking to school of 19 per cent or more. There has been an average increase of three per cent in the proportion of pupils cycling to school. One school has achieved a 10 per cent increase in the numbers cycling.
Page updated: 15 Jun 2010
.