Who Can Help and Local Solutions

Tackling Alcohol-related crime is often a component of a broader strategy to tackle violent crime and anti-social behaviour, particularly in town and city centres.

BEACON COUNCILS

Beacon Council awards for 1998/1999 in Community Safety were given to six Local Authorities for excellence in tackling crime and disorder in town and city centres. The Local Authorities were Bradford, Coventry, Eastleigh, Medway ,Stevenage and Tameside.

All of their strategies contain approaches to tackling alcohol-related crime.

Details of these schemes are available at; www.local__regions.detr.gov.uk/beacon/where/index.htm

POLICING STRATEGIES

North Yorkshire Police launched one of the first alcohol strategies developed by a police force in 1998. It is divided into four sections and sets out clear objectives and performance indicators under each with the aim of:

• Reducing alcohol related offences

• Establishing minimum standards of training

• Creating safe drinking venues;

• Incorporating alcohol/licensing strategy within local partnership plans

Further details from; Mick Gains York & North Yorkshire Safer Communities Consortium tel 01347 823479

The Cardiff Violence Prevention Group was established three years ago and comprises representatives of the police, licensing magistrates, Victim Support ,local authorities, local Accident and Emergency Consultants and Consultant community liaison psychiatrists, the judiciary and the University of Wales.

Key elements of the strategy include;

• Gathering of non-confidential information about violence from A&E depts and the police.

An assault patient Questionnaire has been incorporated into A&E software. Publishing hotspots of violence in the local press resulted in the formation of a local Licencees’ Forum.

• Tackling Alcohol Related Street Crime (TASC)

Re-focusing policing on hot-spots determined by police and A&E data resulted in a 35% reduction in violence in licensed premises in the city centre in1999/2000 compared to 1998/1999. Further details on www.cardiff@tasc.cwc.net or from Inspector Tony Rees tel; 02920 527359

• Increasing Reporting Rates of Violent Offences.

This includes incorporating A&E waiting areas into standard police patrol, appointing a dedicated constable to the hospital and providing awareness-raising training for A&E staff.

• Alcohol Misuse Treatment.

This includes training for nurses in assessing future risks to heavy drinkers who seek treatment for facial injuries. This includes referrals to mental health staff and local Victim Support schemes.

Future projects include introducing brief alcohol interventions for convicted violent offenders in Magistrates Courts and looking at violence in schools which results in hospital treatment.

Further details from Professor Jonathan Shepherd tel 029 20 742442.

In Manchester, City Centre Safe has brought together a wide range of partners in response to a dramatic increase in the number of licensed premises and a commensurate rise in the number of reported assaults.

Between 1997 and1999 the capacity of the city centre’s licensed premises rose by 242% and the level of reported assaults rose by 225%.

City Centre Safe aims to reduce the level of street violence by 9% in time for the Commonwealth Games in 2002.

A range of interventions are underway including ;

• Last Drink Initiative- identifying premises serving ‘last drink’ to offenders

• Night Net Radios- a contact scheme for night club staff

• Social Marketing campaign

• Top Ten Premises enforcement scheme;

This scheme will identify the top ten poorly licensed premises in order to;

• Document the extent to which they attract a high crime rate

• Seek to identify those premises where violent incidents consistently reoccur

• Change the physical and social factors which result in violent incidents

• Create standards of management and customer behaviour which are

• understood and agreed

Premises will be assessed against a number of criteria with points being allocated for each breach or incident. The top ten premises will appear before the Joint Agency Licensing Committee.(JALAC)

The JALAC will consist of the following members;

• A Licensing Magistrate

• A police licensing inspector

• A police plain clothes inspector

• A City Council Licensing officer

The group meets quarterly and is chaired by the Chief Inspector Operations. The intention is to develop with the premises manage, an agreed action plan which will be reviewed at the next meeting.

Those who do not improve their performance will receive high-profile enforcement activity and possibly be publicised in the press.

Further details from Supt Gary Shewan tel 0161 856 3202.

In Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, Project Amethyst has been developed to reduce both the incidents, and fear of violent crime and disorder associated with the misuse and abuse of alcohol.

Objectives include;

• Providing an Alcohol Assessment Stabilisation Programme aimed at reducing repeat offending in three key areas; Youth offending, Domestic violence and heavy drinkers.

• Expand the police licensing team to allow pro-active visits to target premises.

• Increase the amount of detached youth work in order to work with young people at risk.

• Provide dedicated phone lines in A&E centres to encourage reporting of domestic violence incidents.

Further details from Sgt Lyn Gooding tel;02109 611217

The linked table of interventions is intended to stimulate activities and encourage innovation. Examples have been grouped into two loose categories of treatment and prevention, although they are not mutually exclusive.

Most enforcement activity has been considered in the previous section on evaluated options and in specific toolkits such as anti-social behaviour, drugs, prolific offenders and domestic violence.

Details of initiatives approved by The Portman Group and published in the latest edition of ‘Keeping the Peace’ are available at; http://www.portman-group.org.uk/