The community safety ‘profession’: Towards a new expertise in the governance of crime, disorder and safety in the UK?

Abstract

The role of the community safety practitioner is a newly emerging expertise in local government. A survey conducted with local authorities reveals a relatively fluid and unstructured profession of highly educated or experienced individuals with heavy workloads. Practitioners inhabit a contested policy terrain in which they express a preference for a social regeneration agenda rather than narrower crime specific strategies.

‘The right people to do the right job … ’: Legitimation work of municipal corporate security personnel

“…Given their focus on risk management and local jurisdictions, MCS personnel share features with ‘community safety officers’ in Australia (Cherney, 2004) and the United Kingdom (Gilling and Hughes, 2002; Hughes and Gilling, 2004). However, there are three significant differences between the two relatively new occupations that are crucial to the discussion that follows.…”

“…In contrast, in the United Kingdom community safety officer positions, though traceable back to a 1991 Home Office report, were fostered by politically driven legislation under the New Labour government (Hughes and Gilling, 2004). Thus, in 1998 local governments were mandated ‘to develop local partnerships with strategies for reducing crime and disorder’ (Gilling and Hughes, 2002: 5). Second, despite the piecemeal development of MCS units in Canada, the related funding and staff positions have been relatively secure, compared with, for example, one time funding arrangements and precarious positions especially associated with Australia’s community safety officers (Cherney, 2004: 119).…”

Contingency and Politics

“…In the realm of local government in Australia and elsewhere, a distinct occupational grouping has emerged which is responsible for strategy development and implementation in the field of crime prevention and community safety. Typically referred to as community safety officers (CSOs), these positions have become critically important in sustaining State and local crime prevention/community safety policy (Wyatt et al, 1999;Rance, 2000;Cherney and Sutton, 2002;Gilling and Hughes, 2002;Hughes, 2002a;Cherney, 2003). These are not surprising developments, given the increasing responsibility that local government has been allocated in the implementation of central state crime prevention policies, with government funding contributing to the emergence of specialized 'community safety' professionals at the local level (Tilley, 1992;Crawford and Matassa, 2000;Hughes, 2002a;Sutton and Cherney, 2002;Cherney, 2003).…”

“…For example, one objective of the Australian Commonwealth government's strategy for National Crime Prevention is to develop national training standards on crime prevention in order to assist local level practitioners (see Wyatt et al (1999) and the NCP website: http://www.ncp.au/ncp/). Likewise in the United Kingdom various training packages, specifically aimed at local government have been developed by the Home Office's Crime Prevention College, the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders, Crime Concern, and the Audit Commission (Gilling and Hughes, 2002;Hughes, 2002a). Feeding into this work have been corresponding trends in policy research and evaluation that aim to identify 'what works' in crime prevention, and to provide local and central governments with inventories of crime prevention success stories.…”

“…falls and sports injuries), public health matters (e.g. alcohol abuse), and occupational health and safety (Wyatt et al, 1999;Rance, 2000;Gilling and Hughes, 2002;Sutton and Cherney, 2002;Cherney, 2003). Many practitioners within local government in Australia and elsewhere whose role falls under the ambit of 'community safety' are reluctant to categorize their work as simply or primarily to do with crime prevention.…”