Crime Prevention and Community Safety in Scotland

Research output: Contribution to conferencePaper

Abstract / Description of output

As in many other jurisdictions throughout the world, crime prevention in Scotland is now largely being developed and implemented through a ‘multi-agency’, or ‘partnership’, approach where it is envisaged that government, voluntary, and private agencies will collaborate to identify and prevent local crime problems. Unlike some other jurisdictions, however, the approach remains ‘voluntary’ in Scotland. Participant agencies are not statutorily required to engage in partnership work (the sections of the Crime and Disorder Act which create this requirement in England and Wales do not apply to Scotland) although there are strong pressures from policy levels to do so. It should be noted that the ‘partnership’ approach also extends to other policy agendas such as ‘community safety’ and ‘social inclusion’ which, although potentially broader in scope than crime prevention, also include crime control and fear of crime issues within their remits. Based upon qualitative interviews with actors from different agencies, working at different levels within the emerging partnership structures, and within both urban and rural communities, this paper will firstly seek to describe the contours of multi-agency crime prevention in Scotland within the context of broader multi-agency social policies of community safety and social inclusion. The paper will then move on to explore some of the perceived benefits and problems inherent in the approach focusing, in particular, upon issues of communication and conflict both within and between different multi-agency networks.
Original languageEnglish
Publication statusUnpublished - 2001

Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)

  • Crime preventionCommunity safetySocial inclusionMulti-agencyPartnerships

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