Agenda item

Rachel Duke, Adviser, introduced the item, advising members that police statistics show violent crime has risen, bringing long-term declining trends to an end. The report provided an overview of the statistics and the nature of violent crime for further discussion. Member authorities/ organisations had raised concerns and had approached the LGA for support on this issue.

In the discussion which followed, members made the following points:

·         Incidents of serious knife crime were often related to drug and gang crime. More needed to be done to deal with the drug trade.

·         The public sector needed resources to deal with any increase in crime, given the reductions that had had to be made to services like youth workers.

·         Members asked how increases in the figures translated into actual numbers of offences (compared to percentages). It was also asked what percentage of crime had been racially motivate, and whether there had been an increase in hate crime.

·         Given the availability of knives at home, members stressed the importance of education in reducing knife crime.

·         Increasing violence on television and in the media was touched upon as a possible cause of rising crime.

·         Members highlighted the need to work in partnership with PCCs in this area to ensure that local plans were in place to tackle crime and resources were available to deliver them. There had been no mention of PCCs in the report or of the role of police and crime plans.

·         Members further discussed the importance of partnership of place and community safety, and requested that the paper focused more on this. It was highlighted that many 3^rd sector organisations had good relationships with young people and could assist in tackling the issue.

·         It was suggested that a conference was organised jointly with PCCs and 3^rd sector bodies.

Decision:

1.    Members noted the report and agreed the recommendations in line with the steer above.

Actions:

1.    Officers to ensure work emphasises the importance of partnerships of place in tacking this issue (e.g. community safety partnership).

2.    Officers to look into organising a joint conference with PCCs and the 3^rd sector.