Career prospects in community safety

Over the past ten years a new world of crime and disorder reduction has opened up. The developments have been based on government commitments to reduce anti-social behaviour and tackle crime reduction in partnership with statutory authorities, coupled with new budgets created to help make communities safer. The way that these new duties have panned out has been different in each of the Community Safety Partnership (CSPs) areas, but the essential practices, which call on core police skills, are very similar across the UK.

Some CSPs have put a lot of energy and resources into managing anti-social behaviour orders, while others have majored on crime prevention work, but all have had to ensure that the crime and disorder issues in their area are being worked on systematically. So what do these differences mean for getting a job in community safety and then making a success of it?

Best practice

The basic practices in community safety have been developed from research which draws on successful police experience and practices identified by central or local government. The core tasks are effectively similar. However, linking crime reduction work with longer term local community development initiatives and local strategic partnership activities adds another dimension. It goes beyond just reducing a particular crime problem – less target-driven and more outcome-focused. Put simply, there's greater scope and support to make a more sustained impact on crime and disorder.

As a rule of thumb, most inner city community safety teams are more diverse in the range of people with specialist skills that they employ. This is not to say that suburban and rural teams do not require the skills of a crime reduction professional, but the skills they tend to look for are broader and less specific. For instance, there is a burglary reduction team in Nottingham which conducts home visits to all victims of burglary, offers them a risk assessment, gives free additional security measures (where possible), and crime prevention advice. On the other hand, a smaller coverage area would usually comprise a single burglary reduction officer. In some cases, the community safety team might even sub-contract burglary reduction 'target hardening' work to a third party projects, such as the Help the Aged Handy Van scheme.

Roles beyond crime reduction

Apart from the obvious crime reduction and management skills, there are other skills that legislation has made it necessary for local authorities to retain. For example, the licensing of premises or the management of anti-social behaviour orders are core local government responsibilities. The particular skill sets required for these roles spread policing-type experience into local authority departments such as housing, environmental services and community services. In addition, they open up a range of opportunities that put former police officers at the head of the interview queue.

Although the context of the work might be slightly different, police skill sets are essential to delivering these functions. Take the work of a crime prevention design adviser, who is responsible for minimising  opportunities for people to commit crime, disorder and anti-social behaviour in the built environment. These roles are just the sort of skills that are needed in community safety. Similarly, managing a neighbourhood warden team or undertaking the duties of a local authority licensing officer would be familiar territory to any servicing police officer, in terms of knowledge, experience and day to day operational tasks.

That something extra

There is one special ingredient, which every serving police officer has, which is hugely valued by any community safety employer – police officers are trained to be task-oriented. That means being focused on doing the job and completing the task successfully.

This is an essential way of working, just as important in community safety as it is to mainstream policing work.  After all, a community crime prevention project that drifts along is no use to anyone. By utilising their vast experience and good policing practice, former and retiring officers are already making successful transitions to community safety, paving the way for many more currently serving officers to make similar moves.

by Martin Davis, www.community-safety.info