Social Audit... Research Findings - Crime and Community Safety

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2.3    Crime and Community Safety.  

Perceptions of the local incidence of crime and anti-social behaviour can have a fundamental bearing on a community’s image of itself and of its future viability. In the worst cases perceptions of spiralling crime and an unsafe public environment can lead to residents withdrawal from public life and the virtual collapse of local civil society. Moreover, external perceptions of an area as being crime ridden can be a key causal factor in its stigmatisation - something which in turn can exercise a powerful constraining effect upon residents opportunities in all spheres of their life. Perceptions of crime and community safety, can therefore form an essential component of social exclusion.   

Thankfully, the findings of this research suggest that the fear of crime has not reached these crisis levels in Cwmparc Treorchy and Ynyswen. Indeed there is a consistently lower fear of crime and reported victimisation than has been recorded in other community audits recently conducted by the Programme for Community Regeneration. Moreover, there is wider research evidence to suggest that the fear of crime is decreasing within the Rhondda generally (Jones & Adamson 2001). However, as is apparent in the following selection of findings from the questionnaire survey the research also found that crime continues to be a major cause for concern for residents in the area:

• Collectively drug and alcohol abuse, crime and community safety constituted nearly one half (46%) of all responses to a question which asked respondents to list the major problems affecting their area. As can be seen in Table 6 this was by far the largest single category of responses to this question and issues of drugs and crime ranked first in respondents views about the biggest problem in their area. This is consistent with findings from the 2001 survey and marks a departure from mid 1990s when problems with the local economy were found to be the biggest problem (Jones & Adamson 2001)

• Drug or alcohol abuse and crime were the issue most likely to be identified by respondents as the thing they liked least about their area. This issue accounted for 16% of responses to this question.

• Nearly half (45%) of all respondents expressed the view that the crime rate in their area was either high or very high, and nearly one in five (19%) respondents claimed to have been a victim of crime during the last twelve months. 

• Almost one in five (14%) respondents reported that there were areas in their locality where they felt unsafe during the daytime, a figure which rose to almost half (43%) of all respondents during the night-time (Unusually there was little variation in these figures between male and female respondents).  

Conclusion 2: Crime and community safety issues are identified as major problems by residents of Cwmparc, Treorchy and Ynyswen. However, despite this the fear of crime in the area appears to be comparatively low.    

The questionnaire survey also included a question which asked respondents about different types of crime and asked them to rate these in terms of whether they were a “big problem”, “small problem” or “not a problem at all”. The results from this question are presented in Table 7, which ranks each category of crime in terms of the percentage of  respondents who considered it to be a “big problem”. From this it can be seen that public concern appears to be largely focused on the consumption and supply of illegal drugs, the theft of or from cars and youth annoyance.  

Table 7: Respondents Views About “Big Problems” In Their Area.   

As can be seen from Table 7, in the survey results the consumption and supply of illegal drugs ranked joint first in respondents’ views about crime issues that are a big problem in the area. This view was also repeated in responses to other questions on the survey.  For example, drug rehabilitation and treatment programmes attracted the largest single category of responses in a question which asked respondents about what health services they believed needed to be developed or improved in the area. However, it is difficult to assess whether this is indicative of a large drugs problem or a greater public concern about drugs from this data alone, especially since the qualitative aspects of the research generated more mixed results. For example, whereas some interviewees did allude to a drugs problem and gave specific instances of hard drug use, the drugs issue scarcely merited a mention during either of the three community visioning events. Where it was mentioned the respondents clearly didn’t have first hand experience of the problem:  

“drugs are on the increase but you don’t see a lot of it. If you want anything here you can get it. Its definitely on the increase ….. if you see the papers there are quite a few heroin addicts”  

“there may be a problem with drugs but I only know this through hearsay”    

However, in most other ways the survey findings bore a closer fit with the findings from qualitative aspects of the research where there was a particular emphasis on issues of car related crime (theft of, from or damage to) and youth annoyance. As is clearly evident in the following selection of comments from qualitative interviews, focus groups and the community visioning events many residents are clearly concerned about the vulnerability of their cars when parked in public places, sometimes even when it is parked outside their house:  

“cars being broken into can be quite bad around here”

“if you don’t park it outside your house it is stolen”

“car crime is the only real issue around here”

“car crime is a problem ...... they are dumped and burnt out on the tips and at the top of the mountain”

“last week seven or eight cars got damaged”

“my tyres were slashed this week. £52 it cost”

The presence of groups of young people congregating in public spaces such as bus stops, shop entrances and children’s play grounds is routinely a cause for complaint from other sections of the community. The findings of this research are no exception to this. As can be seen from Table 7, “youth annoyance” ranks third in survey respondents identification of community safety issues that are a “big problem” in their area. In many instances these perceptions are based on incidents of vandalism or concern about drug taking and under age drinking. Set against this some young people complained that they were often blamed for things that they hadn’t done or that their mere presence in public spaces where they could socialise with their peers could be construed as nuisance behaviour by others. Ironically this is something that may well be exacerbated by the close knit social structure of the area:  

“When the youth centre is closed there is nothing much to do ...if you do something people complain. Because we’re the oldest generation [of local young people] if anything happens we get the blame...it does your head in. Everyone knows us we all got family up here so its not as if you can hide from it” (15 year old male, Cwmparc)  

“when the youth club is not open we stand around on street corners ...... we get accused of doing stuff that we don’t do” (15 year old female, Treorchy)    

This was also recognised by some older residents who commented that their fears about walking past groups of young people were usually unfounded. During a focus group one elderly woman recounted just such an incident:    

“One night I had to walk past a group of teenagers sat on some steps and I was really apprehensive. It turns out that they were all playing a game of cards and weren’t the remotest bit interested in me! Some are out for trouble but most of them simply have nowhere to go”   

Furthermore, complaints about young people making a nuisance of themselves are often accompanied by comments about the inevitability of this given the lack of more constructive alternative activities for them to engage in. Many respondents attributed problems caused by young people in their area to a lack of recreational facilities, and also often expressed the view that there had been a notable decline in the social and cultural infrastructure from when they had been young:    

“I don’t feel that there is much for young people to do....they hang around at night and get drunk from the off license ..... they are only hanging around.”

“there is not a lot for teenagers …..they congregate at the park and get served at the local off license then cause problems”    

Some felt that there had been an active process of decline in the range of recreational activities available to young people over the years:    

“there is nothing much for young people to do ..... the church project has run down .... there are no brownies etc. anymore”

“Scouts, cubs, cadets, local bands, choir, police cadets ….. when the queen came [for the silver jubilee] they were all here”    

For many respondents in Cwmparc these views were borne out by the reduction in the number of young people congregating in an archway next door to a local grocery store following the opening of the Alison House youth centre in the area.    

“the Alison House youth centre has kept many of children away from the area [the arches]...Now there is next to no children in there”  

“since the opening of Alison House there are not so many children hanging around the area”  

“there are not a lot of children that go here [the arches] thanks to the Alison House youth centre”    

However, local youth workers expressed some caution about this interpretation, arguing that whilst Alison House had had some impact the reduction in young people hanging around the archway stemmed mainly from a particular cohort of young people simply growing up.    

Conclusion 3: 

In terms of individual community safety issues the main areas of concern are with a perceived local drug problem, car related crime and youth annoyance. The solutions to these problems are largely seen to lie outside the criminal justice system and instead reside in such things as adequate drug and alcohol treatment programmes and education, and better provision of recreational facilities.

These concerns are shared by the majority of communities in the South Wales region and beyond and there are clearly easy connections to be made between the lack of facilities for young people and levels of substance misuse, nuisance and crime.    

Recommendation 2. 

That the Regeneration Group commences the development of a Community Safety Strategy which would be based on partnership working with the Police, Drug and Alcohol Teams and the Youth Offending Team. The strategy should investigate the linkages between youth crime and nuisance and the provision for young people in the locality. Solutions adopted should be based on providing alternative to anti-social activities rather than processes which further exclude and ‘punish’ young people.    

The research findings clearly indicate that the prevailing view amongst respondents is that policy solutions to perceived problems of drugs, crime or anti-social behaviour do not solely reside in policing. There would be convincing community support for the approached recommended in recommendation 2. Indeed, the research recorded a clear view that the major emphasis should be on such things as increased provision of recreational and social facilities and, where necessary, adequate drug treatment programmes. However, many respondents were critical of the level and nature of policing in the area. For example in the survey results the police service scored the lowest ratings of any of the statutory service with slightly over half of all respondents describing it as either “poor” or “very poor”. Qualitative aspects of the research revealed two key areas of complaint. First was a perceived failure to respond to incidents in a timely fashion, or sometimes at all. At least one respondent claimed that “I’ve called the police but they never sent anyone”, but it must also be noted that others had praised the police for the speed of their response time.  The second area of complaint is a routine finding of this sort of research. This is that residents tend to want to see a more locally embedded style of policing and in particular greater use of foot patrols:  

“the police are not visible we need more police on the beat and a local station”

 “more police foot patrols”

“Like to see more police visibility”

“the only time we see the police is when they get their photo in the paper”   

Some residents also suggested greater use of environmental crime prevention measures such as CCTV, but this suggestion was most frequently made in relation to the introduction of traffic calming measures (see section 3.7). Other suggestions included making greater use of more informal types of  policing such as the use of neighbourhood wardens or the establishment of neighbourhood watch schemes.  Such schemes have enjoyed considerable success elsewhere in the UK and the deployment of Community Support workers is now being trialled by the South Wales Constabulary.  

Conclusion 4: 

There is clear support amongst the community for a more local style of policing characterized by the establishment of local police stations and increased use of foot patrols. In particular there is a clear demand for a local contact point for the police service.     

If this desire can be fulfilled by the deployment of wardens or community support officers and by the promotion of Neighbourhood Watch scheme considerable improvement in community safety and fear of crime levels could be achieved.   

Recommendation 3: 

That the regeneration group explores policing issues with the South Wales Constabulary to jointly investigate the potential for more community policing, neighborhood wardens or community support workers    

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