Friday 2 November 2012

Are we under "house arrest"

I said that rather than publish my manifesto as a big block of text, I would post a different bit every day.

Today I want to talk about the fear of crime.

Crime is going down.  That is a statistical fact.  It went down last year too.  Another statistical fact.

The question is, do we feel safer?

And the answer I get from people is that actually many of us are still afraid.

And if you are afraid of crime to the extent that you don't go out much, you might as well be under house arrest.

That's why for me, dealing with the fear of crime is so vital.

Now it's not an easy thing to do.  I remember as a child being frightened of something and it taking quite some time to get over it.

But we must give more confidence to our residents and our communities.

This problem can't be solved overnight.  But I want to work with people, organisations and communities to look at how we can conquer the fear.

This might be target hardening things, like the successful Lib Dem led alleygating programme in Liverpool.

It definitely is about making the police more visible and more accessible. 

And its also about finding ways of working with those groups who might, accidentally, be causing the fear.

But make no mistake, for me, tackling this fear is vital and I will want an intense focus on how we deal with it.

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