Crime Prevention Unit

Crime Prevention Partnerships Guidelines

Benefits of a partnership

Crime is a complex issue which has many contributing factors that cross the lines of traditional government department responsibilities. These are problems that agencies cannot solve on their own. Instead, partnerships can bring together different points of view, knowledge, skills and experience to generate new approaches to crime prevention.

Here are some of the benefits that result from successful partnerships:

Better use of resources

Coordinating the resources and organisational responses to a particular crime problem increases their overall impact and gets results that agencies are unlikely to achieve on their own.

Increased commitment

Participating in partnerships requires joint operational and/or strategic planning and decision making, increasing the commitment to getting results. Working together requires each partner to examine their policies and plans in terms of crime prevention and their implications for community safety.

Local solutions to local problems

Partners bring a range of perspectives that increase understanding of the specific problem and allow crime prevention measures to be shaped to local circumstances.

Increased community engagement

Partnership members often have a good understanding of the key people in their communities and how to access local knowledge and resources. Their networks can enable greater and more efficient community participation in consultation processes, appraisal of options, implementation and evaluation. The engagement of local people can be critical to success.

Types of partnership

Crime prevention partnerships can operate on different scales – from nationwide or regional to a district or neighbourhood. Some partnerships operate at a strategic level and others operate at an operational level.  Both are important. Here we look at the two types of partnerships, the partners commonly involved, and others that could be involved.

Strategic partnerships

Strategic partnerships are formed with high-level agreement between organisations. They establish the strategic framework and direction for crime prevention activities, secure resources and act as a governance body for projects or programmes contributing to a crime prevention strategy. Strategic partnerships can result in, and oversee operational partnerships - where staff are instructed to carry out specific crime prevention activities.

Example of strategic partnership: Reducing crime in the local government area

Operational partnerships

Operational partnerships are formed to deliver crime prevention projects and programmes. Ideally they arise from a strategic partnership but in some cases they exist independently.

Example of local partnership: Reducing car theft from car parks

Who is involved in crime prevention partnerships?

Partnerships commonly involve:

• Local government
• New Zealand Police
• Ministry of Justice (Crime Prevention Unit)

They could also involve some or all of the following:

• Other central government agencies, eg, Ministry of Social Development, Ministry of Justice (Courts), Department of Corrections, ACC and Ministry of Education
• Community organisations and non-governmental organisations (NGOs)
• Local service providers
• District Health Boards
• Other non-public service departments, crown entities and state-owned enterprises, eg Housing New Zealand
• Businesses, eg licencees, car park owners

Examples of crime prevention partnerships

CPTED Guidelines

Graffiti guidelines

Setting up a partnership

A successful crime prevention partnership needs clear, effective leadership. Good leadership helps to motivate and focus partners so that they overcome organisational differences and achieve results. It also helps to give direction, and to generate support and recognition of the partnership and its work.

In addition to providing strong leadership, there are four steps to be taken to establish a partnership. At the very beginning, you need to decide whether a need for crime prevention exists. Here are the four steps:

1. Identify the need for crime prevention
2. Identify the need for a partnership
3. Define the aims and objectives
4. Develop a plan

You can also use our ‘Setting up a crime prevention partnership’ checklist [PDF Adobe Acrobat v5 15KB] to help get started.

Step 1: Identify the need for crime prevention

• Define the crime problem.  Ask what, where, when, who and how?
• Identify relevant stakeholders, eg those who are affected by the crime problem and those who can help to address it
• Combine information from these stakeholders to gain greater understanding of the problem and to answer your questions - what, where, when, who and how?

Step 2: Identify the need for a partnership

• Clarify the need and potential benefits of a partnership. Will a partnership help to address the crime problem? If so, carry on!
• Identify potential partners, outline the likely benefits of working together and possible ways they could contribute
• Keep in mind that the partnership needs to justify the involvement of a particular partner rather than just assuming they will play a part
• Make sure you have the right mix of people including those who can make decisions on behalf of their organisation and those with the skills, experience and community networks to get things done
• Keep in mind that community safety or crime prevention need to be on each partner’s agenda before it can contribute resources, time and energy

• Bring the partners together to discuss and define the aim of the partnership
• Establish a set of objectives that will enable the partnership to achieve its aim
• Agree on a governance structure that is fit for purpose
• Use these opportunities to help build enthusiasm amongst the partners for working together

Step 4: Develop a plan

• Allocate responsibilities for specific tasks, or specific portfolios, to each partner
• Agree performance targets and realistic timeframes
• Identify the resources required including budget
• Identify the resources that each partner can provide such as staff, office space, technology, funding and secretarial and administrative support
• Establish performance management processes including six monthly reviews
• Formalise these arrangements through a memorandum of understanding, terms of reference or other formal document. Check out the various types of documents you could use in Putting pen to paper .

Keeping it working!

Partnerships are not static. After being established they need to be sustained and strengthened or, if they’ve served their purpose, disbanded. However it would be rare for a strategic partnership to be disbanded as crime tends to be ongoing, though it may change in nature over time. If so, associated operational partnerships would need to be revisited. It takes skill and attention to ensure partnerships stay focused and relevant, adapt to external change and deliver the intended benefits.

Use our ‘Keeping a crime prevention partnership working’ checklist [PDF Adobe acrobat v5 12KB] to help stay on track.

The following sections provide guidance on how to keep a partnership healthy:

1. Make it happen
2. Manage meetings well
3. Develop skills and knowledge
4. Spread the word
5. Monitor and evaluate progress

1: Make it happen

• Prioritise activities so that you have some ‘quick wins’
• Don’t begin too many activities at once
• Ensure partner organisations deliver, or set up project teams to work on specific issues
• Adopt a problem-solving approach - it keeps crime prevention efforts focused:

2: Manage meetings well

• Make sure meetings have a clear purpose matched by appropriate frequency and length
• Alternate the chairperson role or establish a deputy chair so that meetings do not rely upon a single key participant
• Avoid ‘lopsided’ agendas – focus on issues of interest to all partners
• Circulate the agenda well before meetings so that there are no surprises for your partners. Keep supporting papers limited to one side of A4 where possible
• Ask partners to share ideas and intelligence on relevant issues
• Focus on specific problems, not just the big picture
• Keep minutes concise with a summary of action points assigned to individuals. Distribute these quickly afterwards
• Ensure that meetings generate activity. Meetings are most useful when they lead to action being taken.

3: Develop skills, knowledge and experience

• Ensure partners are up-to-date with developments in crime prevention by sharing new information as it comes to hand
• Invite guests to give their perspectives and/or discuss new directions; swap experiences with similar partnerships
• Encourage partners to learn from each other and to develop their skills in crime prevention, planning, evaluation, project management and coordination
• Ensure decision-making is evidence-based (based on shared information and intelligence):

4: Spread the word

Publicise achievements internally as well as externally. That way, crime prevention becomes recognised as making a valuable contribution to the agencies involved. It stimulates commitment and enthusiasm, and helps crime prevention to become part of organisational thinking – embedded into strategies, policies and plans.

Draw up a communications plan together:

• Identify opportunities to gain publicity
• Make use of existing media
• Encourage partners to advertise by word of mouth

5: Monitor, evaluate and review progress

• Establish realistic and achievable goals, both long and short-term, with clear priorities and targets
• Monitor, evaluate and communicate progress towards meeting these targets
• Hold partners accountable for actions they commit to
• Recognise, celebrate and publicise successes
• Initiate any changes required to improve results

Reviewing the partnership

Keep on task by reviewing all aspects of the partnership and its work every six months. Always refer back to the memorandum of understanding, terms of reference or other formal agreement when carrying out a review. Schedule these reviews and learn from them.

Generally there are two main questions when carrying out a review:

1. Does the crime problem still exist?
2. What next?

Step 1: Does the crime problem still exist?

• Refer to the definition of the crime problem (defined at the outset of the partnership) Link back to Setting up a partnership Step 1: Identify the need for crime prevention p5
• Review progress reports
• Ascertain whether there is evidence that the partnership is helping to reduce this crime problem

Step 2: What next?

If the crime problem still exists

• Review the project plan  and decide whether adequate progress has been made
• If adequate progress has been made, keep going
• If there hasn’t been adequate progress, it’s time to carry out an in-depth review of the partnership and the project being implemented:

If the crime problem no longer exists

• If it is purely an operational partnership it could be disbanded
• If it is a strategic partnership investigate if there are other crime problems that need to be addressed that could benefit from a partnership approach
• If further crime problems are identified the strategic partnership will need to be refocused. Membership should be reviewed to see if there need to be changes to best address the new crime problems being focused on
• It may also be necessary to develop and oversee alternative operational partnerships to address emerging crime problems

Pitfalls to avoid

Here are some of the key things that can jeopardise the success of a partnership. Watch out for these pitfalls and, where possible, put procedures in place to prevent them.

1. Lack of clear purpose or ‘mission creep’ beyond the partnership’s original brief
2. Unrealistic goals and/or lack of achievable targets
3. Differences of philosophy and ways of working
4. Conflicting objectives and interests
5. Lots of talk and no action
6. Unequal and unacceptable balances of power and control
7. Inappropriate representation and/or absence of key partners
8. High turnover of representatives
9. Lack of communication between partners, between strategic and operational levels, between partnership and other stakeholders
10. Absence of a communications plan – this can lead to conflicting messages from partners
11. Time-consuming processes and financial commitments that outweigh the benefits
12. No exit strategy for time-limited or project-based partnerships
13. Insufficient data sharing and/or disagreement about what data to collect
14. Lack of resources