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How can policy and practice move beyond the physical location of people within a neighbourhood to the more challenging task of integrating lives within a ‘community’? This article looks at what makes community spirit, at supporting vulnerable people and at racial intolerance. Faced with the bleak outlook for some communities and the individuals in them, an attempt is made to see what could be done simply, such as identifying good practice, developing effective methods and facilitating practitioners.

Support for homeless people is best provided within a social ethic that stresses similarity and connection. A good life, for those currently without homes as for everyone else, is built on a positive identity, family and friends, relationships, and home and work. The article describes an online network and a new report that offer help in providing support of this kind to enable people to regain control of their lives.

Lemos&Crane has conducted a national survey of action to tackle racial harassment, funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Two hundred and fifty organisations in the sixty‐seven local authority areas in which the majority of black and minority ethnic people live were interviewed. The report has proposed a new framework for tackling racial harassment, with the intention of going beyond an acknowledgement of the problem to a truer understanding, not just of the extent of racist attacks, but also of their impact.

A disproportionate number of homeless people have spent time in the armed forces. This study used interviews with ex‐homeless people with a Services background to record their individual experiences and look at the factors which might increase the likelihood that someone will become homeless after leaving the Services. Disrupted family backgrounds were a feature of the lives of the youngest respondents. Alcohol dependency, mental health problems and relationship breakdown featured strongly among the group as a whole, although they were associated more strongly with older respondents. A central conclusion is that help with housing should be complemented by greater access to emotional and psychological support services during and after the period of transition from military to civilian life.

One of Valuing People's central principles is that people with learning disabilities will be included in society. But how do service providers do that? This article suggests that instead of services' attention being directed towards needs and deficits, it is more important to concentrate on people's strengths and capacities. From the engagement in the mutual exchange of community involvement comes a sense of belonging, of safety, of importance and entitlement. A method is described that starts with an inventory of someone's capacity, then a corresponding list of the assets and resources of the community and finally building mutually beneficial partnerships between local disabled individuals and other individuals, organisations and associations.

The last edition of the Journal carried an introduction to retirement communities. Hartrigg Oaks is a non‐profit‐making community, developed without government subsidy, developed by the Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust, and has become well‐known among those interested in different housing and social care for older people. Modelled on American continuing care retirement communities (CCRC), this retirement village has recently been the subject of a three‐year evaluation (Croucher et al, 2003). This article gives information about Hartrigg Oaks, and some of the findings of the evaluation.

Knife-enabled crime in England and Wales has increased by 7% in the year ending December 2023. Such increases in incidents are cause for concern due to the potential for significant injury and loss of life. This study aims to propose a model of differentiation of offending across 70 cases of violent knife crime (VKC) committed in England and Wales between 2015 and 2020 to inform preventative strategies.

Incident data was collected from online news articles and offender, victim and offence characteristics were recorded. Characteristics were subject to a non-metric multi-dimensional scaling procedure, smallest space analysis (SSA) to differentiate behavioural styles.

Regional interpretation of the SSA identified three distinct themes (Intimate Partner Violence, Gang-Influenced and Reactive Violence) that related to distinct styles of offending. Classification according to identified offence theme was possible for 69% of cases. Findings are discussed with reference to Social Identity Approach and Criminal Narrative Theory. Potential future research is discussed with recognition of the need to further differentiate offending behaviour in cases of reactive violence.

The theorical and practical implications are discussed with consideration of how the findings may inform preventative strategies as part of a public health approach.

While SSA has been used to differentiate behavioural styles across several types of crime, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first instance in which the method has been used to differentiate behavioural styles across cases of VKC.