One City

Order

One City 2008 includes the following initiatives to ensure the safety and security of our communities:

Tackling Alcohol and Substance Misuse

Lead Cabinet Portfolios: Community Protection, Health and Adult Services

Objective: To tackle communities’ fear or crime caused or aggravated by the visible activities of people engaged in alcohol and substance misuse.

What will it involve? We aim to disrupt street drinking and to restrict the sale of super strength lagers, ciders and miniatures. We will use police and council data, coupled with ‘last drink analysis’, to target licensed premises which encourage drunkenness and contribute to a binge drinking culture. We will work with the police to tackle the local drugs markets, including those who seek to profit from the trade and those consumers whose behaviour and activities generate crime and anti-social behaviour. We will also quickly and effectively respond to and remove drugs paraphernalia and other visible manifestations of substance misuse, and intervene to end the cycle of drug and alcohol dependency.

Building on successes to date, the year ahead will see us working with alcohol retailers to promote zero tolerance to high strength alcohol sales and develop a range of interventions to deal with ‘drinking schools’ when identified. This will reduce drunkenness on our streets and we will take action against licensed premises who routinely serve drunken people for on- and off-premise drunken behaviour. Working with the police we will communicate the success of interventions to tackle open drug markets and visible manifestations of drug use.

Tackling Youth Disorder

Lead Cabinet Portfolios: Community Protection, Children’s Services

Objective: To ensure that young people have places where they are welcome to socialise, play and interact safely without causing nuisance; and to challenge the minority of young people who seek to victimise and bully their peers and whose behaviour ruins the lives of the wider community.

What will it involve? Building on the successes of the Hallfield and Warwick pilot project, greater support will be given to increase the accessibility and uptake of youth provision, focusing specifically on young people at risk of committing youth crime and disorder. Specific mechanisms will be put in place to ensure that all staff listen, respond and follow-up on feedback from young people to help them feel and be safe. We will also work with the police to develop a ‘Respect Forum’ to address young people’s crime and community safety concerns and establish an annual, extraordinary CivicWatch meeting to hold service providers responsible for addressing them.

Tackling Domestic Violence

Lead Cabinet Portfolios: Community Protection, Health and Adult Services, Children’s Services

Objective: To develop a new victim-based approach to domestic violence providing a rapid, effective and coordinated response, tailored to individual needs.

What will it involve? We will achieve this through the introduction of a Multi Agency Risk Assessment Conference Process (MARAC). MARAC will assess the level of risk posed to victims of domestic abuse and their children, and will respond with effective targeted interventions and intensive support to reduce the number of repeat victims of domestic violence. We aim to deliver improved victim safety, more targeted services for victims, improved safety of workers, strengthened accountability to victims, joined-up work between agencies working with victims of domestic abuse and their families, and improved criminal justice outcomes.