Crime Problem

In Hartlepool, the level of burglary is high for a long time. It became a main issue of the local community and authorities. Even though, the national average rate of the burglary is high 20.2 per 1,000 populations, the similar crimes happen in Hartlepool more often. Here, the burglars have perfect conditions for their crimes as the community has terraced houses which create two rows. The criminals can easily and invisibly run away through the back alleys between the rows (Adams et al 2005). The burglars’ aims are mostly local houses, back yards and shops (Blandy et al 2004). (2) That is why the new scheme of crime reduction is the getting of the alleys. This is going to be an addition of the lockable gates. This is the situational prevention of crime, but it does lower the possibility to commit the burglary or ASB as easy as it is now. These gates block the exit out. For this moment, fourteen such gates already work. In addition to that, these crimes can feel the reduction impact not only of the police, but also of the other techniques. As the burglars act only in those cases, when they see the opportunities and the way out, Rachel (2006) explains the importance to reduce these factors. The crime accident will decrease in their amount automatically. It is necessary to reduce the perspectives and increase the risk for the burglars (Clarke and Newman, 2005). This is the reason of the installation of those gates which turn the former free open exits through the alleys into the trap. The burglars understand the risk and prefer not to act in these protected areas. The criminals are the ones who do not pay attention to the confrontation. They move fast through the alleys because it is the easiest way to enter and exit the house without being noticed. They can be invisible because they never use the front door because it is usually the most observed part of the building (Rachel 2006). As the alleys are the support for the burglars’ activity, the only way to neutralize it is to make them inaccessible to any of the next potential offenders (365 words).

The partnership on the work of the local agencies against the crime increase is one of the requirements in “The Crime and Disorder Act” from 1998. The Hartlepool project has a purpose to deal with the burglary problem. The partnership is necessary for the judgment matters in partnership with the local crime and disorder reduction partnership (CDRP). The personnel which accomplished the program consisted of the managers, steering group, anti-burglary coordinators, supervisor in the sports centres, and other staff. During the program, out of two managers of the project, one worked as a strategy officer of the community safety in the Hartlepool Borough Council, and the second one – as the officer of the community safety in the Cleveland Police. Their activity was to reach the productivity of the working relationships and to guarantee the leadership with strong but non-authoritarian position. They managed. For the monitoring of the program, every six weeks, they organized a regular meeting of the steering group. First of all, this group decided the targets and monitored the progress of their achievement. Moreover, they encouraged the partners to take part in solving the problems. Besides the managers and steering group, here worked anti-burglary coordinators. They did not have a full-time job, but they had a determinative mission to link organizers with the residents of the program. They had an access to the residents of the community because they mostly worked out of the local centre of sport. The supervisor in the sports centre had also a key position in the work with youth, even though he was not recruited. This work was in getting acquainted with the young people and their trust. The work got the success after the long-term cooperation in combination with outreach direction of the work which, actually, was crucial. To the realization of the program, the other partners and stakeholders involved the safety organization of the community, the volunteering alarm project, the sports centre, the Neighbourhood Watch coordinator, landlord/housing associations, local councillors and residents, residents’ associations, and community police officers.

In theory of the partnership, the expectations of this cooperation are in increasing of the organizational accountability and in reducing of the fragmentation and duplication of services. They also involve the building up the public-private linkages and increasing of the public knowledge about the anti-crime initiatives. Moreover, they encourage the participation in such programs. The expectations also consider the strengthening of the local community organizations, the permanent attention to the prevention, strategic planning and decision making, interagency cooperation, and community participation in local governance (Tilly 2002).

The constituencies and agencies are various and have different views and approaches to the negotiations and decisions in the solving of the social issues. Their work orients on the members of those communities where the level of life is low. These people have a low income and high criminality. Their life is full of fear, despair. They do not trust anyone, even the government agencies and police. Even though, the work in such districts is completely difficult the agencies still try to involve these people to the programs against crime (Rosenbaum 2002).

The results of the program showed that the burglary report in the problematic area decreased on 25 percent. Considering the actual amount of the burglaries before the program, the month average burglary rate was 17.5 and, after the two years, this number is 13.2. This is a comparison to the 9 reduced percent of the local police division and 12 reduced percent in the Cleveland Police Force Area. According to the researchers’ calculating, during the first year of the program, the number of avoided burglaries was 38, and, during the second years, it was 17. It is less, but still many. The program influenced the burglary rate with the prevention of 55 burglary crimes in general. After four years, the result was 28 percent of reduction, comparing with a 13 percent (local police) and 8 percent (police of Cleveland). The total amount of the avoided burglaries reached the number of 138. According to the result calculations, the burglary rate decreased in the treatment area. Moreover, it did not increase in the buffer zone. This decrease indicated a diffusion of benefits. Chfield says that the conduction of the third or higher level of evaluation is necessary for proving the efficiency of the scheme (Sherman 2001).

For the evaluation of the project effectiveness, Adams used a quasi-experimental design with comparison conditions (Adams 2005). The plan contains two areas of the households with general number of 3,500. Before the program, 17.5 was the rate number of burglary incident per month. This information is about the over four year period. The local police began the data collection was in April 1997, and ended it in September 2001. According to the research, in 1999, the police improved their computer system. This means that they could clean the previous information which serves for assessing the rates of burglary incidents in the period before and after the program. The zone of comparing is partly the buffer zone which the treatment zone the Cleveland Police Force Area, the Hartlepool 1 Police District (Basic Command Unit or BCU) around it. It also includes the north area of the town centre. The researchers worked on the comparison areas in order to determine the significance of the results in the Hartlepool SDP. The first control date was after the two-year project followed by the next stage. After four years, the researchers analysed the consequences. They used the quasi-experimental design which tests the causal hypotheses, which have limits of the assessment to the partnership impact in general or analysis of the intervention component efficiency. They combined design type with the qualitative case studies do not play a role for the counterfactual information which remains essential (Tilly, 2002). In addition to that, Tilley (2009) tells about the limited recorded data of the police (Burrows et al 2000; Povey 2000), even though the situation with the classificatory practices in Britain improved (Audit Commission 2007). The report does not always contains the crime, and even if does, that does not mean that this crime is recorded.

In 1998, the British Crime Survey came to the conclusions that the more than the half of all burglaries happen though the back enter of the detached houses with terrace. In addition to this, the data reports of the Merseyside County are the proof of the previous statement about the more often burglaries of the terraced houses. Here, this rate reaches 72 percent. In theory the installation of the alley-gating is going to affect the burglary amounts. The data of the former investigation shows the efficiency of this scheme (Budd, 1999).

In the Liverpool informal interview, Johnson said that, in addition to the reducible effect on the actual and potential burglary rate, the gates make the alley more comfortable for walking. The other advantage is the higher involvement into the community life. The organisation creates the consulting team which holds the meetings for discussion of the project details. At last but not the least, the results of the study contain one more advantage – the positive improving effect of the alley-gating on the environment (Johnson 2000).

The situational prevention of the crimes has its weaknesses. The results of the studies showed that it just displaces crimes in the particular situation, but do not decrease the criminal tendency and do not persuade the offenders to stop. Otherwise, they become smarter while looking the new methods to overcome new obstacles. The situational methods do not reach the roots of the crimes. However, this argument has also the persuasive answer in favour the other opinion. Even though, the situational prevention of the crime does not deal with the reasons and pushes of the crime incidents, it still helps with the avoid some of them. It means that the crimes can be prevented without being removed. Some of the security methods are disgusting, but the civil liberty needs a protection. The implementation of the alley gating and the CCTV is a loyal alternative (Tilley 2009).

In the frames of study, the respondents answered the questions about the crime extend according to the availability of committing the burglary. The results of this research contain the next numbers: 58.7 percent of the surveyed consider 76 percent of the incidents caused by the opportunity. The responders do not really believe in the efficiency of the situational prevention of the crime, if it is about the theft, burglary and even personal or street crimes, but they do assume the effectiveness of this method in the cases of the sex crimes, violence or vandalism (Bajpai 2005). The focus of the access control directs on the opportunities reduction for the criminal actions. This can work out by closing or controlling the access to the potential places of crime. The additional security measure would be the creation of the greater risk of being trapped and caught. The potential offenders should realize the danger of the crime for themselves. The warning is going to stop them. 1 – For the access control, the various devices and methods will fit, for example, the security guards or mechanical devices such as keypads, bolts and locks, the use of formal or informal strategies. According to the multiple results during the study, the interconnection between the crime level and the use of these features is obvious (Rogers 2013). 2 – The areas with the available access shows the higher amount of the crime incidents comparing to the streets with the strict access and constant control (Eck 1979). The fact that the alley-gating projects in Birmingham in England caused the reduction of the domestic burglary incidents of 53 percent is a perfect support of the previous statement (Ekblom 2002). However, the alley-gating itself is not the only reason of the crime reduction, the other issues, for example, anti-crime kits, stickers, ultraviolet pens, and local news sheet were effective supplements to the security measures. This means that the implementation of the gates is not the complex measure, and it needs other supportive devices which accomplish the idea of the program (Rogers 2013). In Hartlepool, the initiative of the alley gates in combination of the property marking, youth programs, target hardening, Education and awareness activities and Community development has found a support.

The huge evidence suggests the effectiveness of the territoriality parts and control on the crime reduction and anti-social behaviour. This is the information out of an amount of independent researches. Among them, the work of Bower (2004) conducts the similar gate installation and usage of the scheme in Liverpool in 2004 (Rogers 2013).

At the end of the 20^th century, the collapse of the “penal-welfarism” has a two-fold contradictory response in the control system of crime all over the western societies. The first response explains the “adaptation” when the functions of the criminal justice and the partnership stress after the prevention of crimes including the actors of the “civil society” and agencies are commercialized and rationalised. From the strategic point of view, the “adaptation” is on a “self criminology” and perceives the criminal as a thinking actor. The new tools and targets of the crimes change the crime itself (Ekblom 2005). The priorities of the society have changed. The current process concentrates on the sustainable development, resilience of buildings to climate shift, and low energy solutions. The continually changes touched the privacy and freedom balance with the security. The crime context alters on all scales. That is why, now, the new threats of crime exists in the combination with the new opportunities of the prevention. For example, the former industrial land can be switched from the service-oriented and residential. Between the places, systems and product, the wireless connection increases the blur. The more homes link to Internet in order to possess multimodal security system. The transport balance is shifting. It concerns the public transport and private automobiles. The informal “eyes of the street” have the result of the changes by cameraphones. The arrival of the new building materials becomes resilient and sensitive. Perhaps, it considers the digest graffiti and chewing gum.

London and the south-eastern England are the location with the biggest density of the gated community. Some of the academics alerted about the scheme’s weak points considering the social effects. The researchers of Glasgow concluded that the concentrated affluence level attracts further crimes apart from the gaining polarisation (Atkinson 2005). The literature about the gated community does not reveal much about their efficiency against crimes, but notes the provoked conflicts between the neighbours. In England, around 1,000 communities belong to the gated ones. Most of them are new built. The proof of the socially diverse or social rented developments has strict limits. The first push for the development was a security, although the most are in the areas with low crime rate. The study also noted the lack of explanations about the guidance policy for the gates communities, and encouraged the clear response on the issues concerning crime, social equity, and good design. It was also important to discuss the persuasive point for the building of the gated communities. It contains the information about the alley gates, which is not the same as the gated community because the efficiency of the gated community still remains unknown. The study highlighted two main conclusions in the policy of the gated communities. The first one is that the symbolic withdraws of the affluent, in perspective, can cause harms for the urban sustainable development. It is in the case of a large number of the gated communities. The small amount does not have such effect. The second implication concerns the social cohesion, promotion of affordable housing and mixed neighbourhoods that create the increase of the tensions.

The prevention and the control of crime are different terms. The first one is outside the confines of the formal system of justice. It considers itself as the fourth pillar of the reduction of the crime, alongside courts, corrections and police (Waller 2006). The purpose of the intervention, in the case of the situational crime, is to reduce the opportunities for the burglars and increase the difficulties and risks for them in order to prevent the burglary incidents. The crime-specific focus is the place where the criminal act occurs. The prevention of the situational crime has a focus on the research of the highest quality and the most strict evidence reviews (Eck, 2006).

The final researchers’ conclusion is the alley gating which is the best way to prevent the crimes and to reduce the burglary incidents to 65 percent gross (Dukeries, Hull) and 37 percent net (Bowers et al 2004). In addition to the successful and helpful effect of the installation of the gates, the program of the crime prevention is still looking for the other ways how to increase the safety. The observing of the schemes of the gated neighbourhood shows that the gates have impact not only on the reduction of the crimes and decreasing of the re-offending, but also give a perspective to the potential offenders to find an employment place in the local communities. (Rachel 2006). The stability of the successful influence of the alley-gating scheme requires the constant work and establishment of the consultation team. It is going to organize the discussion meetings with local residents in order to observe the project details and create the confidence without the fear of crime. According to the Hamilton-Smith’s and Kent’s summarising in 2005, the three evaluation of the scheme against the burglary showed the excellent result with the reduced 15 percent of the burglary incidents (Rogers 2013).

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