Interagency Crime Prevention for Rail Station Environs

Trudi Cooper2, Terence Love1, Fred Affleck1, Erin Donovan2

1 Curtin University, Perth, WA, Australia

2 Edith Cowan University, Perth, WA, Australia

PATRECPATREC

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Funding

• Office of Crime Prevention (OCP)• Public Transport Authority (PTA)• City of Armadale (CoA) • City of Gosnells (CoG) • City of Joondalup (CoJ)• City of Swan (CoS)

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Participants• City of Armadale• City of Gosnells• City of Joondalup• City of Swan• WA Passenger Transport Authority

(Transit Guards)• WA Passenger Transport Authority

(Community Education) • Armadale Youth Resource Centre • CentreCare, Joondalup• C of G APLOs • C of G Safer Cities • C of G Travelsmart• C of G Youth Services• Corridors College, Midland • DCD, Joondalup• DCD, Midland

• DCD, Armadale• DrugArm, Armadale• ECU Youth Work, Joondalup• GreatMates, Kelmscott• Hills Community Support Group• Joondalup Youth Support Services• Juvenile Justice, Midland• Lakeside Joondalup Shopping

Centre• Mission Australia, Gosnells • Police & Citizens Youth Club,

Midland• WA Police Crime Prevention,

Gosnells• YMCA mobile youth service,

Joondalup

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Map

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Real life problem

• Public concern about anti-social behaviour by some young people in public and pseudo-public spaces around station environs

• Develop interagency collaboration between youth agencies and PTA to enable sustainable locally appropriate solutions

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Factors that shaped the project - Office of Crime Prevention

• Address real life crime prevention and public safety problem

• Practical outcomes • Sustained commitment by community partners to on-

going collaboration after project completion • Transferable model of interagency collaboration• Process informed by relevant academic literature

Implies: Action research method plus inter-agency collaboration

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Factors that shaped the project - Participating agencies

• Multiple (6) collaborating funding partners with diverse perceptions, goals, practices and operational priorities

• Participation by large number of community agencies• Shared commitment to community safety

Implies: Interagency collaboration, locality based

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Policy background

• Government policies encourage increased public transport usage

• Fear of groups of young people inhibits some patrons’ rail use

• No existing relationship between PTA and local youth agencies

• History of conflict between some young people and various security services that police pseudo-public space

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Research literature – interagency collaboration

• Interagency collaboration important because actions of agencies positively and negatively affect each others’ work in a locality

• Interagency collaboration extremely difficult to establish and maintain

• Variance of operational practices, values, goals and roles exacerbates problems

Partner agencies have diverse organisational goals, roles and values

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Interagency collaboration is important

• Enables complex problems to be addressed effectively• Mobilises more resources• Synergies between operations

• Experience indicates uncoordinated single agency responses:– Move ‘problem behaviour’ from one location to another at

considerable expense– Increase youth alienation, which may increase anti-social

behaviour

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Known problems of interagency collaboration

• Potential misunderstandings about goals, priorities and roles of other agencies

• Miscommunication when issues oversimplified and viewed only from perspective of each agency’s central concerns

• Group dynamics and interagency politics• Individual agencies dominate discussions • Inaction if problem(s) seem too complex and intractable • People try to ‘shift the problem’ to another agency

(related to feelings of helplessness/ hopelessness above)

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Research literature – young people

• Well-documented worldwide history of conflict between young people and authorities in public space and public concern

• ‘Hanging out’ easily escalates to public disorder offences if not handled carefully

• Young people are the age group most likely to be victims of crime (especially young men)

Community perceptions of ‘anti-social’ behaviour by young people are variable and often include both legal and illegal behaviour

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Research literature – crime prevention

• Increased policing is expensive and frequently moves location of problem rather than prevents it

• Better to control problem ‘in situ’ than displace crime• Satisfactory ‘in situ’ management requires physical,

environmental, cultural or relationship changes

Identify local priorities and possibilities

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Research methodology

• Action Research for supporting inter-agency collaboration, resolving group conflicts, overcoming apathy and hopelessness, and as a foundation for sustainable outcomes

• Soft Systems Method for contextual data collection, analysis, choosing interventions

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Transferable model principles - 1

• Build understanding of roles and priorities of different agencies

• Build respectful personal relationships between people in different agencies and organisations

Identify shared goals

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Transferable model principles - 2

• Explore how the work of each organisation positively or negatively affects other agencies

• Acknowledge where roles and priorities differ

Identify local actions that can support the goals of multiple participants

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Transferable model process - 1Understand agencies’ perceptions of issues

• Separate initial meetings with agencies whose goals, purposes, roles or values conflict

• Create ‘rich pictures’ for each locality

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Transferable model process - 2Build mutual understanding & respect and identify local issues

• Highly-structured joint meeting to share information about roles and priorities

• Explore interrelationships between work of different organisations;

• Share and discuss ‘rich pictures’; • Use discussion to identify priority issues where

collaboration could bring about positive change

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Transferable model process - 3Plan, implement and evaluate collaborative action

• Agree roles, processes and timeline for interventions• Hold additional meetings as required to:

− Maintain momentum− Review progress− Identify obstacles− Modify plans (action research model)− Ensure that decisions are acted upon− Ensure relationships are maintained and problems are solved

collaboratively

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Transferable model process - 4Project evaluation and closure

• Document and share achievements and acknowledge barriers

• Make local arrangements to continue collaboration• Maximise learning by sharing experiences • Acknowledge and celebrate successes (effective

collaboration isn’t easy)

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Things that support the process

• Process begins with the right local organisations• Initial group includes:

– Activists– Creative problem solvers– People with sufficient seniority and sufficient organisational

flexibility– Solution-focused individuals

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Things that inhibit the process

• Group members feel local situation is too hopeless to try anything

• People are over-constrained by bureaucratic procedures or mindsets

• People with insufficient authority to do anything• Lack of continuity of involvement• Participants have too many competing priorities• Key organisations omitted from initial process