Editorial

Citation

Bateman, T. and Smithson, H. (2016), "Editorial", Safer Communities, Vol. 15 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/SC-11-2015-0037

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Safer Communities, Volume 15, Issue 1.

Tim Bateman and Hannah Smithson

Perhaps the most significant feature of the current international landscape within crime reduction and one which criminal justice policy makers and practitioners grapple with is the pervasive problem of reducing crime. This edition of Safer Communities presents contemporary challenges and a range of responses. Challenges include: drug policy reform, government responses to youth gangs, desistance and reintegration frameworks, and crime prevention through environmental design.

The first paper is an opinion piece by Liz Austen titled "Police and crime commissioners: emerging ‘drug policy actors’". In this thought provoking paper, Austen discusses the relationship between PCCs/local constabularies and drug policy reform. She suggests that motivations for pursuing a change in drug policy are based on both the economic and ideological agendas of some PCCs and subsequently, pressure from PCCs and chief constables may be more effective in initiating change than high-profile national campaigns and political debates.

Debates around the decriminalisation and/or legalisation of drugs in the UK have received significant attention over the past 12 months. Successive governments refuse to enter into a debate about the future of British drug policy. That said, there is significant academic critique of current British drug policy and more recently, debate and activism amongst a number of PCCs, such as Ron Hogg, Durham’s PCC and Alan Charles the Derbyshire PCC, with support from their respective chief constables.

Austen’s paper highlights the critique that is developing from within the policing service, most notably from Police and Crime Commissioners, which blur the boundaries of politics and crime control. She seeks to acknowledge and highlight the emergence of new drug policy actors in recent years. The paper begins to raise questions around these shifts in the policing agenda whilst critiquing a shift in philosophy. She questions the extent to which this re-focus is in line with democratic policing or whether the moves are governed by a need to effectively handle shrinking budgets? Austen advocates that academics should focus their lens on the PCC role as a drug policy actor, the changes in the sociology of policing, and bottom up policy reform as such an focus could outline how the future of British drug policy could be altered.

The second paper, "Youth in the UK: 99 problems but the gang aint’ one?" is provided by Hannah Smithson and Rob Ralphs who launch a critique of the UK government’s "obsession" with youth gangs. At the heart of the paper is the suggestion that government funded gang interventions are currently bereft of an evidenced based approach. They provide a detailed overview of the history of gangs in the UK concluding that contemporary evidence of gangs paints a mixed picture, full of contradictions and competing narratives. They argue that despite the lack of a solid evidence base, difficulties of defining gangs, their members and associates, and a sustained reduction in youth violence and serious offending the implementation of the Ending Gangs and Youth Violence (EGYV) national strategy was a political over-reaction that unfolded as a post-script to the English riots of August 2011. EGYV saw £10 million invested in 29 local authority areas most affected by gangs and youth violence. The aim being to "improve the way gangs are tackled locally". They go on to use Manchester as a case study to demonstrate some of their concerns about the paucity of evidence. The city is one of the key "gang cities" in the UK and is widely regarded as a "trailblazer" with respect to gang policy and practice.

In 2013, the authors were commissioned by the Greater Manchester Police Safer School’s Partnership to explore the views of secondary school staff regarding the extent and nature of the gang and youth violence problem in Manchester schools. Despite Manchester City Council receiving the second largest sum of EGYV funding of any local authority area, not a single school involved in the research viewed themselves, or their pupils, as having a problem with gangs or youth violence. They then go on to reflect on the EGYV’s formative years and contest the Home Office’s assertion that the strategy has been a success. They conclude that the limited data do not support claims of success and the short term-ist nature of EGYV reduces the likelihood of establishing a robust evidence base. The paper concludes by arguing that the focus on gangs has the potential to misidentify young people as gang members and also represents a clear misidentification of national youth-focused priorities.

Desistance is increasingly conceptualised as a theoretical construct which is used to explain how offenders orient themselves away from committing crimes. Martin Glynn’s paper, "Towards an intersectional model of desistance for black offenders" argues that there has been little work undertaken to examine how notions of "intersectionality" may be a more appropriate theoretical lens from which to locate and contextualise the understandings of desistance when looking at marginalised populations such as black offenders. Intersectionality is an understanding of human beings as shaped by the interaction of different social locations. These interactions occur within a context of connected systems and structures of power. Through such processes, independent forms of privilege and oppression are created. Using interview data, Glynn argues that there is now a pressing need to utilise an improved and more appropriate theoretical lens from which to look at desistance in relation to marginalised populations of offenders such as "black men". He envisages that by engaging with an integrated theoretical perspective such as intersectionality, desistance will be better understood and move beyond criminological hegemonic assumptions. He argues that if marginalised offender populations such as black offenders have traditionally been defined purely in terms of "race" without taking into consideration the multiple oppressions they face, it is hard to see how criminologists can claim how those same populations "accept" or "reject" notions of their desistance. He concludes that without "intersectional" ways of "seeing" and "knowing", criminologists will struggle to expand the understanding of how oppressions in desistance are generated, reproduced, and maintained.

In Southeast Asia, there is limited research on the reintegration of ex-offenders, particularly in Singapore. In her paper, "Managing offenders: establishing the impact of incarceration and what works in Singapore", Joyce P.S. Chan uses qualitative methods to understand the experiences of 12 ex-offenders who have successfully reintegrated back into the community after their release from prison. Singapore’s prison population currently stands at 10,000-15,000. The imprisonment rate for men is five times higher than that for females. Most males are between the ages of 21 and 30 and the main offence committed is drug offences related. The Singapore Government has supported several initiatives to assist ex-offenders with their reintegration back in the community upon their release from prison. These initiatives are provided by various government agencies, including the Singapore Corporation of Rehabilitative Enterprises, a statutory board that actively engages external service providers to conduct skills training programmes for inmates.

The purpose of the paper is to identify the factors that influence the reintegration process of ex-offenders. Chan focuses on the philosophical bases of "effectiveness", for example, helping ex-offenders find jobs. The study found that the factors influencing successful reintegration included: a true commitment to making change happen and a desire to change. Chan stresses that it is also important to understand the importance of sustaining change by preventing future relapse, for example, having a pro-social environment where (ex)offenders are engaged with the opportunities they are given through employment, for example, further increases their probability of successful reintegration. Coupled with the factors above, reintegration also includes having a purpose and vision in life. Chan found that holding onto a faith gave participants an "anchor" in life. Of significance, was the support from family, she concludes that having a mentor or coach to support them through their reintegration is vitally important. Each of the participants stated that their family was and still continues to be one of their motivating factors to sustain change. Having responsibility to their family increased their sense of accountability. The paper concludes by arguing that a holistic approach in Singapore is needed to ensure the success of reintegration.

The final paper in this edition, "Combination of CPTED and space syntax for the analysis of crime" is provided by Irina Matijosaitiene. Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) differs from traditional security tools in urban planning and architecture. Traditional security can refer to organisational security such as police officers and security officers, to the building of fences, walls and installing of alarms. Whereas, CPTED focuses more on natural security strategies, such as natural surveillance, access control, and territorial reinforcement. Matijosaitiene attempts to address a number of questions – why are some spaces safer than others? And should we avoid a space or activity in order to stay safe? The purpose of her research was to combine CPTED and space syntax for a more detailed and overall analysis of the influence of built environment on crime reduction. Space syntax focuses on human behaviour in urban spaces, the basic idea being that some topological properties of spaces are related to human behaviour. The research was carried out in two cities that are similar in size and population but very different in culture and location: New Haven (USA) and Kaunas (Lithuania).

In an attempt to identify which factors of urban environment based on CPTED and space syntax affect crime, a comparative analysis of thefts from motor vehicles and robberies in the two cities was undertaken. The results demonstrate that in New Haven robbery was related with connectivity; robberies occurred more often on popular routes, with more people on the streets, and in spaces not very far from the main streets. Similar findings were found for theft from motor vehicles. They tended to happen in well-connected spaces, that were more often chosen as a route from origin to destination, and that were not far from main routes. In Kaunas, theft from motor vehicles tended to take place in urban spaces closer to the main streets. While for robberies, there was no significant relation between topological properties of spaces.

Matijosaitiene concludes that robberies and thefts from motor vehicles are influenced by urban planning and design factors (based on CPTED), as well as topological properties of urban spaces (based on space syntax). The research identified a combination of both CPTED and space syntax that act as a contributor to increased crime levels. In both cities, thefts from cars happened more often on street segments which had higher topological depth from private space to a public space. In both cities, the presence of blind walls facing car parking lots contributed to a higher risk of thefts from motor vehicles. Matijosaitiene concludes by stressing the need for crime prevention measures to be developed with CPTED and space syntax in mind.