Speaking of the Causes of Crime…

Simon’s earlier post had an interesting resonance with the story from Limerick (better covered here) about the appointment of ‘Community Coordinators‘ to help organise communities and prevent anti-social behaviour. Ironically announced on the day ASBOs for adults came into effect, it is a genuinely fresh idea and one which we can only hope will succeed.

The worry is it may lack funding, thank to years of reluctance to reform local government. Or it may work brilliantly, which makes one wonder if there is a chance it may impact on the General Election. It is designed as a two year pilot to give maximum time to bed in a policy project which could act as a bridge between government and population, but if it begins to show any signs of success, it is bound to be acted upon as a template for dealing with the causes of crime in areas severely affected by poverty, deprivation and crime.

I haven’t drawn many conclusions yet, I simply think a policy idea like this, coming from local government, is amazing. They are stymied at most turns, underfunded and unempowered. Hopefully this provides a policy template which goes beyond the antithesis between punishment and causes to act to prevent, deter and community police crime.

I am hoping to keep an eye on it.

If you fancy the job, info here.