13th January 2021
Author: Door van der Wiele The author is editor at the Centre for Crime Prevention and Security 13 January 2021, Article in Secondant – Platform for social safety
Secondant: Ook een geslaagde HIC-aanpak vergt onderhoud (ccv-secondant.nl) (Dutch)
Preventive measures that are effective against High Impact Crimes must receive permanent attention and energy. There is now a manual for people with one foot in daily crime prevention and the other in policy for a problem-oriented approach.
In the past decade, considerably fewer burglaries, robberies and street robberies have been committed in the Netherlands than in the previous decades. These forms of crime have significant consequences for the victims and create feelings of insecurity in society. This influences citizens’ trust in society and specifically in the police and the judiciary. That is why these three forms are called High Impact Crimes (HIC).
PREVENTIVE AND REPRESSIVE
This nationwide declining trend in the Netherlands is good news, but the decline is not visible everywhere in the country. There are still worrying concentrations. Focused attention remains necessary to address the problems. As part of the European project Cutting Crime Impact, the manual Problem-oriented work on High Impact Crime[1] was created. This manual brings together (inter) national knowledge and experience in the field of HIC. The manual explains how these forms of crime are tackled effectively and in a problem-oriented way. The approach combines preventive and repressive means, and the measures are aimed at victims, offenders and situations.
The paradox of a successful approach is that successful projects can suddenly be forgotten. A successful approach requires maintenance. In practice, it often happens that when a crime problem is reduced to an acceptable level, attention drifts away from policy and implementation, and budgets are cut. There is a good chance that after a while the problems recur in full force.
The Public Prosecutor's Office mainly works in a perpetrator-oriented way from the perspective of criminal law
Examples include the approach to robberies of entrepreneurs, the approach to violence against officials with a public task and the approach to burglary. Effective measures should receive continued attention and energy and be adjusted or supplemented over time. It is the responsibility of local, regional and national government to ensure that successful preventive
policies continue. For example, with incentive grants for successful preventive policies, publications in professional journals or sharing knowledge about approaches that work.
SARA
The method in the manual is the same as the SARA approach: Scanning, Analysis, Response, Assessment. It starts with looking broadly at signals; what is going on in the field of the HIC? Priorities are set, followed by an in-depth analysis for a better view of causes and backgrounds. Subsequently, solutions and measures can be sought together with other stakeholders. These are laid down in a plan of action which can then be implemented. Afterwards, an evaluation will examine what has been done and to what extent the measures have been successful.
DIVERSITY AND COOPERATION The manual Problem-Oriented Work on High Impact Crime describes how the local triangle, police, municipality and Public Prosecution Office (OM), together with citizens and entrepreneurs, can tackle these types of crime in a practical way. The manual focuses primarily on professionals who are well versed in both implementation and policy.
As chairman of the triangle, the mayor is responsible for cohesion
Practice often proves unruly. To tackle High Impact Crimes, various organizations have to work together that have (partly) similar interests. But those interests can also differ, as can their corporate culture and structure. Authority over the police about public order rests with the mayor, and the Public Prosecution Office is responsible for criminal law enforcement. The Public Prosecution Office mainly works offender-oriented from criminal law point of view and is therefore reactive and repressive. The police is responsible for safety, security, crime prevention and tackling crime under the authority of the mayor and the Public Prosecutor. The emphasis of police work is on “doing” and “catching crooks”. As chairman of the triangle, the mayor is responsible for an integrated approach.
Each partner has its tasks and its DNA
Of course, the local triangle is not only about authority relationships; there is also cooperation. Each partner has its tasks and its DNA. These differences provide a strength for integrated cooperation, but it can also cause problems. Ultimately, these three organizations – police, public prosecutor and municipality – work with and for local institutions, companies and citizens. Together they define the focus of the types of crime to be tackled in an action plan. In this action plan, they jointly name the goals, measures and preconditions, and they already design the evaluation. All stakeholders from the triangle, and the social partners, must be able to identify with the parts of the action plan in which they participate. It is important to work problem or crime-oriented.
PEARLS OF KNOWLEDGE
There is a lot of knowledge available about the approach of HIC. the Netherlands has an enormous amount of HIC approaches, from the Top600 approach to the intervention in the robbery of meal deliverers and from bodycams to Police label Safe and Secure Housing.
The 200+ pearls of knowledge from Jaap de Waard of the Ministry of Justice include evidence-based meta evaluations that he has sent (almost) daily since March 2020. These can also contribute to more effective policy.
The authors of the manual offer extensive practical examples for inspiration. Gouda, for instance, struggled with burglaries for years. In 2016, Gouda had the highest burglary risk in the Netherlands with 20 in 1,000 homes, more than twice as high as the average. To tackle this huge problem, the new team management of the Gouda police team focused on a reduction of the number of burglaries in collaboration with, among others, the municipality, housing associations, youth workers and residents. They used the problem-oriented approach The Best of Three Worlds, also described and explained in the manual.
The number of burglaries fell from 20 to 8 burglaries per 1000 homes
The package of measures focused on offenders, victims and the physical environment. The offender-oriented measures included a ‘Top Offender approach’, an approach to criminal families and the prevention of recruits. Victim-oriented measures were, for example, residents’ meetings, neighbourhood patrol-fathers and a community worker. Concerning the physical environment, for example, subsidy measures were created for burglary-resistant measures. The number of burglaries fell from 20 to 8 burglaries per 1,000 homes. In that process, the nuisance from young people also decreased significantly.
[1] In Dutch. A new version of the manual will be published in Dutch and English at the end of 2021.