Crime And The Fear of Crime (Oxfordshire Liberal Democrats)

Oxfordshire Liberal Democrats <info@oxfordshirelibdems.org.uk>

Crime And The Fear of Crime

April 3, 2007 2:33 PM
By Cllr Zoé Patrick in Oxfordshire County Council

All of us will have examples in our own areas of where residents are duly concerned about crime and the fear of crime. Whether it is gangs of youngsters just hanging around in the streets, or more serious crimes of theft or assault, what we all want to see in our communities is our residents having the confidence to be able to walk around without fear of something happening.

We know the council already works with the Community Safety Partnerships set up within our district and city councils, and indeed, this will be a good step towards our 'enhanced two tier working' if we can show that within six months we have achieved some important aims.

Clearly we must raise the visible police presence on our streets - if you ask any person what they want to see when you talk about crime or fear of crime it is 'we want to see more bobbies on the beat', and this is hugely important. I am sure others were dismayed to see in the national news how many police officers are swamped with bureaucracy filling in forms at the office, instead of being out and about, and we must do all we can to achieve that.

We need to develop existing arrangements for victim support to identify the scope for compensation and reparations to be paid by offenders.

Our Youth Offending Service is already working hard and I am sure others were pleased to hear about the major conference which was organised earlier this month where we heard about 'Doing Sorry'. This major conference held in Kennington was looking at how young offenders can make amends for their crimes and indeed it meant that Youth Offending Teams from across England and Wales gathered to share good practice. One crime victim said (from our press release) ' It is easy for the offender to say sorry, but when they do something practical in their own time to put things right it feels like they are really 'doing sorry'. So let us have more of the same.

And let us examine the scope for the introduction of Community Justice Panels and for other measures of specific community engagement with the administration of justice. I am sure others will join me in sharing ideas of where reparation can work where young people can give something back. I was talking to a police officer only last week, who recited the classic example of the youth who stole a laptop who then went on to hear the businessman who he stole it from say how his whole life's work and all his family business was lost in this one foul swoop and when confronted with young offender responsible, it was a learning experience for them both. This is good practice which has been shown to work.

We know a lot of crime is drugs-related, and again, we have to try to break the cycle of drugs/crime and repeated offending, and we know that if we can intervene within this vicious cycle then more can be done to break the habit.

All this motion is asking for is a clear mandate from this council to improve what work is already going on, and we must do more. We all know that crime and anti-social behaviour can wreck people's lives. Even in areas of low crime, often the fear of crime is a bigger issue than ever before, and the media do not help with this. A good crime story sells newspapers. But tackling these problems has to be a top priority for us. Let us deliver some action now, within our communities and make Oxfordshire an even better place to work, play and live in without worrying about crime. I ask you please to support this motion.