Community Safety Partnership is the name for the body responsible for reducing crime, disorder and drugs misuse in an authority area (formerly Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships). The Crime & Disorder Act (1998) places a duty on the Responsible Authorities to work together to reduce crime and disorder.
Following several years of collaborative work, the Community Safety Partnerships for the districts of Stratford-on-Avon and Warwick were formally merged in 2008. This body is now called Safer South Warwickshire.
The Partnership is made up of the following Responsible Authorities:
- South Warwickshire Clinical Commissioning Group
- Stratford-on-Avon District Council
- Warwick District Council
- Warwickshire County Council
- Warwickshire Fire Authority
- Warwickshire Police
- Warwickshire Probation Trust
Priorities
SWCSP is charged with developing and agreeing realistic and challenging targets annually to address crime and disorder. The Partnership produces an annual strategic assessment which informs a rolling 3-year joint partnership plan to reduce crime and anti-social behaviour in both districts. The Strategic Assessment identified a number of high risk issues and at the Strategic Member Board meeting in February 2020 the following priorities were confirmed.
Priority themes
- Violent crime - focus on knife crime, domestic abuse and the nighttime economy
- Serious acquisitive crime - focus on residential burglary dwelling and vehicle offences
- Acquisitive crime in rural areas - including 'rural crime'
- County lines - focus on identifying vulnerable groups. Links to violence and substance misuse
Cross-cutting themes
- Drugs and alcohol
- Reducing re-offending
- Vulnerability
Problem Oriented Approach
SWCSP has agreed to adopt the Problem Oriented Partnership (POP) approach to crime reduction. POP refers to the process used by agencies working in partnership to address the fundamental problems that underpin crime in order to improve community safety in a locality. POP approaches attempt to move beyond community safety being solely a matter of dealing with offenders through the criminal justice system.
Whilst robust enforcement is an important part of the process, relying solely on this has been described as treating the symptoms but not the illness. POP encourages the wider use of intelligence within a partnership setting to identify patterns of offences in relation to type of perpetrators, localities or victims.
Problem solving techniques are employed to get to the root of the pattern and to put in place solutions that will make crime and disorder less likely to take place in the future.
Safer Warwickshire Partnership Board
The Safer Warwickshire Partnership Board approved the aligned Police and Crime Plan and Community Safety Agreement.
South Warwickshire Community Safety Partnership funding bids
- Going Out & Staying Safe - £47,805.00 including Street and Taxi Marshals, CCTV, Street Pastors and First Aid.
- Domestic Abuse - £6,500
- Serious Acquisitive Crime - £9,478
- County Lines - £17,000