T4C - Time For Change

[Colin James]

HV has teamed up with Paul Daykin from T4C, I have offered to help and support his projects where possible.

 

Paul is keen to meet up and discuss how we could possibly work on some joint ventures particularly south of the river in Hereford to add to the existing Hereford projects that are already completed or ongoing.

 

Please check out the excellent T4C Website for all the details of this and other projects.

 

[Alex]

What a brilliant idea, well done to HV for supporting such a good cause.   

[Biomech]

I have no problem with independent groups taking initiative and responsibility - but not when I'm paying someone like the council to do the job they're are appointed to do yet refuse to.

I'd rather my tax money went to people like this.

[dippyhippy]

Sounds a really positive thing!

I'll have a look at the website!

[Colin James]

Paul has added a link on his website here

[Ubique]

In connection with CPTED which I believe in strongly , I am sure that in the old days , going back to the 70 /80/90 both West Mercia Police and Warwickshire Police had Crime Prevention Officers covering the area , might be under a different name , they also had Officers trained to Design out Crime , these Officers attended courses at the Home Office Crime Prevention Centre in Staffordshire and were tasked with liaising with the Local Authority Planners etc to view plans of new build and refurbishment including the refurbishment of housing estates .

It appears that T4C have taken over this role if they had to give a presentation to the two Forces on CPTED .

 

I certainly wish T 4C the very best of luck , the answers are in the main quite simple using common sense.

[Guest Paul@T4CHereford]

Thank you for your comments and for wishing me luck. It is always welcome to hear support for Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design [CPTED]

 

I must confess to only have studied the application the CPTED of the 1970's -1990's as part of the history of the subject. My training was Home Office based in 2005 and 2006 and was followed with additional work with members of the teaching faculty at University College London, the Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science and Oxford Brookes University. The old-style CPTED to which you refer was in general fairly basic in its methodology and the concepts have certainly evolved in recent times into a more evidence-led and scientific discipline.

 

Despite being brought up in Hereford I left in 1982 and joined the Metropolitan Police, where I worked for 26 years in some of the most violent, crime ridden and deprived areas of the capital but to avoid making my reply appearing like an episode from Life on Mars , a visit to the T4C website will explain a little more of my background.

 

From 2006 - 2010 my work on CPTED in London included the adoption of more scientific approaches to Crime Prevention such as - Investigative Psychology, Geographical Profiling, Crime Pattern Analysis, Spatial Analysis and understanding human interactions with the design and layout of the Built Environment, the use of Photovoltaics and LED lighting to reduce crime and the fear of crime and many other strategies linked to crime reduction.

 

From 2007 - 2010 I was very fortunate to work with a team of experts from other organisations and different fields of expertise as together we researched the links between the poor design and maintenance of the built environment and :- 

• Crime and levels of offending
• The Target Choice of Criminals and cues taken from the environments they frequent
• Youth Crime and Social Exclusion
• The increased risk of depressive illness , Alcohol abuse and Drug addiction and associated costs to the NHS, Social Services, the Local Authority and Police
• Anti-social Behaviour, Littering and Graffiti
• Territorial Behaviour and Gang Culture
• Gun and Violent Crime and the creation of concrete fortresses
• Violent Crime and Night-time Economies
• Social isolation created by the fear of crime and especially the impact of hostile environments upon vulnerable members of the community including the elderly

Applying what we learnt through a multi-strand / multi-agency approach, we saw some dramatic reductions in crime but as importantly our combined strategies improved the quality of life of those in the areas where we worked.

 

As I have a passion for Hereford , my specialist subject and a desire to learn, I continue to seek out best practice from hundreds of contacts who include police officers, criminologists and academics from across the World and I also receive invaluable help from other 'experts' , such as the one I met in Hereford yesterday - please follow the link to T4C News     

 

As you point out CPTED is indeed mainly common sense but as we all know - Common Sense is unfortunately far too Uncommon. For my part I prefer to think of CPTED as Evidence-based Common Sense and since returning to Hereford in 2010 I have been researching a way to offer this approach to issues across the City and potentially across the County.

 

Hope this helps

 

Paul

[Ubique]

Thank you Paul for a very comprehensive post .

 

As I said earlier , I wish you and the organisation the very best of success . I am sure , however , there will be times when you will feel that you are banging your head against a brick wall - keep banging - the unbelievers will surrender .

[Colin James]

Thanks Paul, it was good to talk on the phone the other day and I am looking forward to working together where possible in the near future, hope to se you Monday. 

[bobby47]

Good luck Paul. Mind, you've got problems and I suspect you know you have. For a starters you've got all the Partner Agents all nibbling away at the very issues you are addressing and worse, they all get funding which, unless you can get a slice of the cake, is going to make your aims very hard to achieve.

The Police! This is a 'can do' organisation. If the Police are tasked with something they'll charge at it and do the very best that they can. Their problem is, they've got Partners and all these Partners are all riding on their backs because they are a can do organisation and these Partners are all involving themselves in areas of work they know nothing about and shouldn't ever have become involved with in the first place.

Why did they ever get involved? Funding and a thirst to do interesting work rather than cut the grass and tidy the streets. Essentially, you've got the Police who do deliver. Then you've got the Council who hold the reigns, they hold the meetings, and there's lots of them, Probation who reluctantly go along with the 'game' but would rather be at work addressing their heavy workload, you've DASH who hold the recipe for Methadone and they don't like anyone getting involved in their Drug Work and historically they can't ever grasp why the Council employ a team of people to deal with alcohol and drug abuse. Then you've got a bunch of Voluntary organisations who all get involved in the areas of Mentoring work and consequently, the whole approach to Crime Prevention, Restorative Justice and all the other labels that they all pin to their jackets, becomes a mess without any joined up thinking.

The consequence is by the time the 'suits' have taken their slice of the cake, you and the rest have attended endless meetings discussing 'blue sky thinking' and endless gimmicks designed to show something is being done, by the time the money hits the Tarmac, there's little left to do anything of any substance.

In short, there are now to many people at the table and until we rid ourselves of the multi agency approach to problem solving, nothing will change because the Council and all the other agents riding on the back of the Police are very precious and don't want to let go of an interesting area of work that they no nothing about.

Good luck with your business venture. You'll need it Paul.

[George Armstrong]

It appears that the T4C website is down, which is a pity as I'd would have been interested in their observations on the recent policing initiatives and developments.