The action plan will also have secondary players being involved, which include the NSW State Treasury who are the State Governments bankers. It is they and they alone who control the movement of funds for all State Government decisions. They and they alone also inform the government if a request for funding can and cannot be achieved, so having the treasury department onside is a major beneficial ingredient. Also playing a critical secondary support roll is the Department of Community Services (DOCS), Courts, larger private enterprise, schooling institutions and community health centres. When assigning task management, the local council whom are the point directive controller can and should have other models available for reference to certain situation and reference points for extra information. Crime prevention models are repetitive and are not something newly created, it is the dynamics of the plan that need to be flexible so as to changes in society and the economy, the two most influential aspects of crime and the downswing and upswing in criminal activity. A good crime prevention strategy also may look at utilizing information from other sources, as such found easily at the Australian Bureau of Statistics. (Hughes, 1998)
There are also specialist state government departments which also can be used as a reference point for help should the local council run into managerial problems or any other unforeseen problem. One of these is the Dept of the Attorney General. Here, certain aspect of current legislation can be used to draw upon resources and funds if needed. The Office of the Attorney General has a program called the Safer Communities Compact and a funding arm called the Safer Communities Development Fund. When utilizing this resource, the Office of the Attorney General, will look at the plan and view it from an all of government perspectives (an all of government approach). It can also endorse the plan and instruct certain sub agencies to be involved and to allocate resources to the plan. For additional funding, Councils may look at invoking the Children (Protection and Parental Responsibilities) Act 1997, which will allow them to access the fund on a statutory level, as described under the Act. (Attorney Generals Crime Prevention Manual)
One key group in engaging in crime prevention is the Chamber of Commerce. This organization is business orientated, but, it also represents business interests that can be threatened in such a way that it becomes unprofitable for them to operate. Insurance companies, small and large business will always be interested to hear how they can reduce loss through theft, lower insurance premiums through lowering of malicious damage to their stores/businesses, and insurance companies have an interest in lowering costs through payouts of claims made against them by businesses who are effected. They also have the ability to lower the situational circumstances to lower crime, such as not having goods on display outside the store, preventive theft measures such as tags and screening devices, but they also can add funding by the way of grouping together and providing extra security guards, increasing the security presence and deterring crime in just about any facet, from theft to Assaults. Violent areas do no bring customers; this should always be advocated to them. (Brown Etal, 1994)
There is also a liability factor under legislation that councils and business should be aware of. This can be a focal point when engaging in consultation with secondary supportive groups. Under the Local Council Act 1993, local councils are responsible for managing public lands. The implication means, that local councils, under this Act, have a manner of duty of care to those who use that land. Councils should be aware that under this Act, they can and should, issues directives to the governance of that land, in regards to what and when the land can be used. If they wish to close a park at night, then they should do so, issue signage, and inform the Police that the land is now closed from public use. The duty of care also extends to business, namely that of alcohol sale and consumption on premises (Bars, clubs, hotels), and the sale for carry away alcohol (bottle shops), that they also have a duty of care for the behavior of what takes place on their property, under common law as well as statutory requirements. Most businesses have licenses to operate, and this is the measure by what the crime prevention plan should be addressing, by engaging persons whom have a vested interest in to do so (Hardie, 2002). Although this may add an extra cost burden to them (the opposite of good business) the ability to effectively terminate business on the basis of bad business practices is enforceable under legislation from the Police under the Community Welfare Act 1984, and the Community Protection Act 1997
All crime prevention programs, start with good intentions and all agencies usually begin with the intention of addressing the concerns and targets raised, however, it should be noted, that government sub agencies all have directives of their own, and these may conflict with the crime prevention plan in itself. Funding requirements is always competitive in nature to all government agencies, which allows them to undertake objectives themselves to meet charter requirements, or the ability to expand operations as per extra demands placed upon them, however, all agencies have an allocated budget. Here, is where a conflict of interest may arise and the partnership may struggle to meet its agreed service levels. This is described perfectly by Thistler (2001, p2) as “ no matter how noble the cause, every agency has its own priorities”
If the local council is designated as the manager of the crime prevention strategy and therefore is the entity that issues instructions or requests to other agencies, then there maybe conflicts of interests, from both a operational and legislative point of view. Although the Police are by the far the most easily identifiable in this category, their roles as crime preventors from that of the criminal catcher can sometimes be highly opinionated. The Police are the sole governing agency in the state of NSW to have the powers to arrest, detain and charge a person and put them before the courts. Therefore, the way in which they operate is highly legislated and is high scrutinized by not only the Ministry that it reports to, but to other sub agency overseers such as the Ombudsman and Police Integrity Commission. Therefore, taking instructions and meeting management targets from the Police may come into serious conflict. (Hassel, 2006) Although preventing crime is a responsibility of the Police, the recording of arrests and charges is placed in the productivity measurement tool that measures Police involvement in an area and how effective they are being. Since Police may also be forced not to disclose certain operations, for other private factors, they cannot be solely relied upon as the main enforcer, but should be utilized as an enforcer of ensuring that other parties in the crime prevention strategy uphold their responsibilities. As stated by Sarre (1997, p78) “there may be some crime prevention functions that police should avoid altogether. In many instances the preferred option might be for the police to ensure simply that other agencies and groups (such as health care, schools, town planners and families) take responsibility” Police are excellent at not only targeting offenders of crime, but also entities and persons who give the possibility of it taking place, and are the best enforcers against business who may become lax in their approached to crime prevention strategies and see it as being a burden to business. Here, they are best utilized in a secondary support category and cannot be said to be being discriminatory against just one business to that of all. Sarre (1997) argues that police are not effective in regards to the prevention of crime, since policing is in fact more of a reactionary adjustment to crime. Police, although having powers to arrest, detain and charge in regards to crime, they have very little powers, if any, to actually do anything if a crime has not been committed. There are very few charges that allow a person to be charged with an offence if a crime has not been committed, therefore, utilizing police is a waste of the resource and should be more allocated to specialists who actually patrol and monitor (ie security guards), rather than looking to formally enter people into the criminal justice system.
Clearly evident from this statement, it is fair to see that certain aspects of policing make them better suited to a reactionary resources rather than a primary operative. There is also the problems of police culture and police ethical standards that can come into question when operating in the crime preventor capacity (reasonable suspicion). With Police culture, the police force always operates on a para-military level with a rigid chain of command, and they are highly measured in regards to how they spend their funding and resource (manpower) allocations (Sarre, 1997) Taking orders from civilians is something against Police culture and operational policy. It is a matter that has been hotly contested over the years. (Reiner, 2000)
In any crime prevention model, there must be effective reporting and monitoring. Here again, the central hub should be collecting and correlating the information that is relayed from the other agencies into an intelligence brief. A crime prevention officer, who is trained in such manners, is the best person for this role. Statistics and cross checking against the crime prevention plan must constantly be monitored so that all agencies can meet their effective targets correctly. It is here when the plans fall apart from the lack of communication that can begin to arise. Some agencies, will have the attitude that their efforts are best suited elsewhere and the resource allocation may actually begin to conflict with the agencies agenda. As quoted by Cummings Et al (2002,foreword) “ the evaluation of a community crime prevention program can provide valuable information about the programs appropriateness, acceptability to key stake holders, efficacy and efficiency and thereby enabling managers to plan improvements” and “ evaluations studies have been undertaken, they have used a narrow range of evaluation models, often focusing solely on measuring project outcomes or impact” By not having proper systems in place, there can lead to total breakdowns in the program, as each agency may lose focus or interest in participating. The model chosen, should have five main parts as described by Cummings Etal (2002, p127) who identifies them as “ goal based, decision orientated, systems analysis, professional review and illuminative/responsiveness”. Here, each of the quantitative information collected can, and could be, custom made for each of the participating agencies. Each agency has different needs and those needs should be tended to, to allow them to report to their supervisory superior in a manner that meets their goal parameters of their overall mission statement. Reporting functions of the police will not be identical of the health agencies, and would be completely irrelevant to educational needs that would suit schooling. So, it can be said with confidence, that the proper reporting function is by far one of the most important functions that the central hub can perform, without it, it can collapse the plan altogether. (Cummings Etal, 2002)
In summary, this essay has identified and discussed the roll of numerous players involved in crime prevention. It also looks at the benefit in engaging and consulting these various specialists and what roll they can and should play. It also has looked at legislation, and common law that enforces that councils take crime prevention seriously, in the forms of the duty of care and not just a social moral understanding. It also has identified the many problems with multi agency tasking to crime prevention strategies and the conflict of interest that may also arise. Although crime prevention is a continued struggle and the measurement of its success is highly variable and highly questionable, just about all in society agree that not to undertake some forms of crime prevention is far
more detrimental to the community than simply addressing the issue after the crime has taken place and therefore is something that should be taken seriously by all those concerned.
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