Append D
Report of ICPAN Practitioners Workshop


Published in Urban Safety - Safety for All


The International Crime Prevention Action Network (ICPAN) workshop of practitioners facilitated interaction and participation based on an agenda for discussion determined by approximately 55 delegates. Nine topics were chosen by the participants who discussed the key challenges in small groups and offered suggestions to promote effective crime prevention strategies and approaches. This short report provides notes on the discussions of each of the nine focus areas. It is hoped that these will provide a basis for further discussions and elaboration by stakeholders.

1) Early Intervention


Key Challenges
  • Example by parents
  • Discipline at home - yes or no
  • Involvement of private agencies in reparation
  • Practice what you preach
What Works
  • Education
  • Training
  • Problem identification
  • Community involvement
  • Setting rules and abiding by them

2) Education in Crime Prevention: The Practitioner


Key Challenges
  • Backgrounds
  • Discipline
  • Remuneration
  • Resources
  • Manpower
What Works
  • Education
  • Training
  • Role-modeling and being an example
  • Dedication
  • Improvement of image
How Can We Promote What Works?
  • Setting of pre-employment requirements

3) Local Authority Involvement in the Effective Targeting of Youth and Family Development


Key Challenges
  • Facilitate movement away from traditional methods and roles of crime
  • Paradigm shift in the use of resources which the local authority can creatively co-ordinate
What Works
  • Build self-esteem of youth through social means and contacts which affirm and encourage youth

  • Redirect children’s attention and energies away from negative conduct to constructive activities that they might find interesting, stimulating and appropriate
How Can We Promote What Works?
  • Co-operate in an integrated and co-ordinated manner with all roleplayers
  • Local authorities should take the lead

4) Role of Local Government in Crime Prevention


Key Challenges
  • Local governments to realise that crime prevention is a multidisciplinary issue
  • Formation of strategic partnerships
  • Lateral approach to redirect local government services where needed
  • Maximum use of resources – multiskilling staff
What Works
  • Community ownership of and involvement in crime prevention activities
  • Effective youth diversion programmes
  • Interprovincial exchanges
  • Empowerment of staff to become safety officers voluntarily and then as part of their jobs
How Can We Promote What Works?
  • Facilitate community involvement on a broader scale
  • Occupy youth between 14:30 and 17:30 (window period)
  • Promote interdepartmental integration of programmes on crime prevention

5) How to Get Communities and Individuals Involved to Take Responsibility for Crime and Crime Prevention


Key Challenges
  • Get community and individuals involved with police forums and the reporting of crimes
  • Involving churches, schools, etc.
  • Primary crime prevention
  • Crime reports must be followed up
  • Use of resources: people (wanting to be involved) and funds
What Works
  • Secure neighbourhoods
  • Education programmes to involve people in community police forums (CPFs)
How Can We Promote What Works?
  • Dissemination of information

6) Best Practice: Street Children, Homeless People, Gangsterism


Key Challenges
  • Street children and homeless people: redefining shelters; dealing with current position; regulating children on streets; protecting them and the community; schooling and education; social workers to rebuild the family; and addressing drug and substance abuse

  • Gangs: unemployment; prison stigma; motivation; protection mechanisms; police inadequacy; and corruption
What Works
  • Street children and homeless people: street workers to network with law enforcement agencies; university involvement with street children; computer games; lobbing manufacturers of glue to use non-addictive chemicals; and sponsoring street children

  • Gangs: removing violence motive; loans to initiatives from private sector; skills development; and mentorships programmes for youth at risk
How Can We Promote What Works?
  • Integrated approach and fine-tuning existing programmes and skills for sustainability
  • Engaging resources from business

7) Violent Behaviour Against Women and Children


Key Challenges
  • Difficult to talk about causes and identify them
  • Difficult to talk about domestic violence and sexual assault – seen as normal
  • Lack of information about where to get help; how can neighbours help?
  • Reach out to violent people: violence normal in society, now changing attitudes
  • Westernisation and urbanisation destroy cultural norms
What Works
  • Culture-specific information

  • More accessible information

  • Practical door-knocking with information

  • Ability of people to change

  • Understand cultural basis for behaviour - use cultural keys (e.g. listening to elders)

  • Link to human rights

  • Checking on families where there have been complaints (stigma)

  • Education of police to treat complaint seriously; sensitivity towards women; network with social services

  • Professionalise police; treat fear seriously
How Can We Promote What Works?
  • Community policing where experts and police work together, each learning from the other

  • Community forums to supervise and guide police evaluate their task (should be helpers, not violent or disrespectful; generation needs to unlearn ways)

  • Providing alternatives to families

  • Telling stories about abuse and survival; not just a focus on urban areas; getting messages about rights and resources to rural areas (not radio or newspaper); pay people to tell stories

8) Role of the Mass Media: Prevention or Promotion

Key Challenges
  • Access information on crime prevention
  • Strategies for media coverage
  • Media to bridge the gap between generations
What Works
  • Fundraising activities
  • Lobbying
  • Good parental education
  • Interaction between towns and cities
  • Objective secretariat responsible for reporting on crime
How Can We Promote What Works?
  • Equal coverage of crime in all neighbourhoods, townships and towns
  • Objective coverage and reporting
  • Awards - as a motivating factor
  • The media should ‘grow up’ – tell a balanced story
  • Press should be partners on forums

9) Vehicle and Associated Theft

Key Challenges
  • Resources
  • Effective investigation of ‘chop shops’ and scrapyards
  • Controls
  • Technology
  • Commitment of staff
What Works
  • Community involvement in the problem and effects
  • Staff of related businesses being involved
How Can We Promote What Works?
  • Publish success stories locally and internationally
  • Get parties to exchange information
  • Utilise Internet capacity
For more information about the International Crime Prevention Action Network (ICPAN), please contact:

The BC Coalition for Safer Communities
C/O The People’s Law School
#150 - 900 Howe Street Vancouver, BC Canada V6Z 2M4
Telephone: 604-669-2986 Fax: 604-331-5401
Email: ppearcey@cybersurf.net
Website: www.web.net/~bccsc