Feature: Tackling crime with communities

Javed Khan, Chair of Redbridge Community Crime Commission, reflects on the importance of involving local people in policy decisions around community safety and the benefits of seeking accountability as a local authority.

Barely a day goes by without another serious crime headline. We see the horrific regularity of violence against women and of the senseless loss of young lives to knife crime, but rarely do we hear the grinding, daily fears of communities and families who witness crime on their doorstep. It is even more rare that these voices are invited to help shape solutions. But it was just this desire to bring lived experience to tackling crime that led to the establishment of the Redbridge Community Crime Commission earlier in 2021.

It was in the Spring that the Leader of Redbridge Council, Cllr Jas Athwal, invited me to work with a group of committed local people to scrutinise the collective role of council, police, health and education in creating a safer borough. It’s worth taking a moment to recognise how bold and rare this was. A less risky approach would have been to gather the experts in a room and let them come up with solutions to residents’ priorities: women and girls’ safety on the streets, domestic abuse, drugs and street crime, anti-social behaviour and burglary. But the real experts in the issues which affect local people are local people themselves. The council knew our review might reveal some unpalatable truths about how services perform; but with a desire to turn the tide on some seemingly intractable problems they, and partner agencies, gave their wholehearted support to this no-holds barred inquiry.

During the summer months the 16 Commissioners and I, all with strong links to Redbridge and passionate about creating change, considered local priorities and asked the hard questions about what might be done to improve things. In a series of evidence gathering sessions, we heard from more than 40 witnesses from organisations including the Metropolitan Police, the local education and health systems, specialists in the fields of youth work, domestic abuse, drug and alcohol services and communications and culture change, as well as local people with experience of gang violence, street harassment and community action against anti-social behaviour. Our sessions, which were closed to the public to let witnesses speak candidly, were remarkable for the vividness of the testimony we heard, the lack of defensiveness about where things were going wrong, and the passion from all sides to make things better.

Examining issues holistically, a series of common themes became apparent – these issues are at the heart of what undermines current efforts to tackle crime, and crucially, are at the heart of improving things. We called these our ‘golden threads’ and I suspect they may be factors impeding the efforts of agencies across the country. Our Commissioners’ found poor communication between agencies and the public; services working in isolation from each other; a system that does things to people rather than working with them, and agencies being aware of young people at risk but not intervening early enough to prevent criminality.

Perhaps we are overly ambitious to think that entrenched ways of working can be transformed overnight. But the recommendations from our Commission reflect the ambition of a community demanding change.

We now want leaders of our public services to be brave again, listen to us and deliver that change. Undoubtedly there will be difficulties: we know that funding is a problem. But we also know that the costs of doing nothing dwarf the cost of acting now. Investing to solve today’s problems will insure us against them becoming worse tomorrow. To state the obvious, we simply cannot carry on in the old ways – the consequences would be catastrophic for another generation.

Next year many councils will be seeking election on a platform of making life better for residents. Politicians will take to the streets to hear the views of residents and to commit to ambitious agendas. But what we have seen at Redbridge goes way beyond listening – this brave and creative initiative is part of re-shaping the relationship between electors and the elected, truly putting citizens at the heart of local services. And if my initial scepticism was of this exercise paying lip-service to public engagement, then these thoughts are allayed by the commitment of my Commission to review progress next year and beyond. With ambition comes accountability. It’s an approach that others should learn from.

Photo supplied by Redbridge Community Crime Commission