>>
go to next
story >>
'CRIME
WATCH' SCHEME FLOPS
The
Sunday Times (London) May 10 1987
By
Brian Deer, Social Affairs Correspondent
NEIGHBOURHOOD
watch, centrepiece of the government's
crime-prevention strategy, is a failure, according to
research commissioned by the Home Office and backed
by Scotland Yard. Such schemes, which involve more
than 4m people, have no effect on crime levels and
possibly make them worse.
The
findings are the result of a two-year investigation
of neighbourhood watch carried out for the government
at the Institute of Criminology in Cambridge. They
include:
*
Crime levels went up in the watch areas studied,
which crime fell slightly in monitored areas that had
no scheme. Both measurements are of crimes committed,
not just those reported to police, and were collected
by detailed questioning.
*
Co-operation between police and public, measured by
reported crime figures and by information telephoned
to stations, showed no improvement in the watch
areas. There was no rise in notification of
suspicious persons.
* The
detection of crime and police "clear-up"
rates got worse. The number of offenders fell
sharply, while clear-up rates for criminal damage and
motor thefts were also down.
"There
is no evidence of beneficial effects in any of these
areas," the 70-page report says in summary.
"Neighbourhood watch had no discernible impact
on crime, its reporting or its detection."
Police
chiefs, who received copies of the report on Friday,
have been stunned by the findings, which suggest that
running the schemes wastes considerable police time.
David Owen, crime committee chairman of the
Association of Chief Police Officers, and chief
constable in North Wales, described the conclusions
as "hellish stuff", and declined to say
more.
Forces
all over Britain have committed themselves to schemes
after a campaign by ministers. Announcing a new
crime-prevention initiative based on neighbourhood
watch last week, Douglas Hurd, the home secretary,
said the number of schemes had risen from 1,000 to
29,000 in just three years.
Although
schemes vary, nearly all involve window sticker
warnings to thieves, property marking and an initial
community meeting, arranged in conjunction with the
police.
There
has been growing unease, however, among chief
constables that, whatever the political enthusiasm,
the schemes are often not an efficient use of police
officers.
The
only real advantage discovered was that some people
in schemes were less frightened of household crime.
Dr Trevor Bennett, the report's author, commented:
"In my view there is not a great deal of good
news here either, but one of the things neighbourhood
watch was supposed to do was reduce the fear of
crime."
Bennett
studied four areas in the Metropolitan Police region,
two with schemes in place and two without. Schemes
regarded as good were selected for detailed
investigations, using specially-commissioned opinion
poll surveys of the population before the scheme
began and after it was well-established.
Scotland
Yard, numerous Metropolitan Police staff and the Home
Office's research unit contributed to the study,
which also relied on a computer model from the Royal
Statistical Society.
- POLICE
RETREAT IN ROW OVER
- NEIGHBOURHOOD
WATCH
By
Brian Deer, Social Affairs Correspondent
The
Sunday Times (London) May 17 1987
SCOTLAND
YARD is refusing to release the results of a police
investigation into neighbourhood watch schemes,
despite growing concern about its effectiveness in
reducing crime.
The
investigation, ordered by Sir Kenneth Newman, the
Metropolitan police commissioner, had been eagerly
expected by crime prevention experts. Clearance had
been given for its circulation when The Sunday Times
last week sparked controversy by revealing a Home
Office study critical of neighbourhood watch.
Following
our report, Scotland Yard denied that neighbourhood
watch had failed and claimed that police research
showed the schemes were a success. In a statement
this weekend, however, the Yard says its London-wide
study was "not a sufficiently useful or
important document" to publish.
Its
findings are understood to show that recorded crime
levels stayed the same in areas covered by
neighbourhood watch schemes, and the study raises
doubts about a "displacement" effect, where
one sort of offence declines and another increases.
In
his annual report last year, Newman wrote: "It
seems more than probable that an effective
neighbourhood watch project in one locality will
displace burglary to a nearby neighbourhood which has
not thought to protect itself. Alternatively, or
additionally, if the watch schemes grow, there is
some evidence to suggest that burglary drops but
street robbery rises."
Scotland
Yard's directorate of management services carried out
the evaluation, which was intended to complement the
Home Office study by Dr Trevor Bennett of the
Cambridge Institute of Criminology, reported last
week. Together they comprise the biggest-ever inquiry
into neighbourhood watch.
The
Metropolitan Police statement said that conclusive
findings about the schemes are very hard to obtain.
"Our study has more favourable indications about
neighbourhood watch than Dr Bennett's research, but
these are weakened by methodological
difficulties."
Merseyside
police also refused to release their evaluation of
neighbourhood watch early last week, but reversed
this decision after The Sunday Times complained to
the Home Office.
This
report, which ministers said revealed neighbourhood
watch was working, was compiled by PC Alan Jenkins
and Sgt Ian Latimer of the Merseyside force. They
studied reported crime levels in four neighbourhood
watch areas with an average of 67 houses.
The
report was submitted by The Sunday Times to the
independent Police Foundation for analysis. Malcolm
Hibberd, the foundation's crime prevention
researcher, described it as "absolutely
abysmal". He commented: "I had been told
that the report shows things were improving, but the
conclusions do not follow from the report."
Bennett's
study, however, was commended by the foundation and
by Scotland yard crime prevention experts. One said:
"We agreed with Trevor Bennett that he would do
the big in-depth studies. They are the only ones
where you can come up with any sensible
findings."
These
findings, however, made grim reading for supporters
of the mushrooming neighbourhood watch phenomenon.
They show that the schemes had no beneficial effect
on crime levels, its reporting to the police or its
detection.
Bennett
was attacked last week for drawing such damning
conclusions after studying only two schemes out of
29,000 recorded by the Home Office. But he said this
weekend that the large majority of these schemes
consisted of little more than people putting stickers
in their windows, while good schemes had property
marking and group meetings.
He
had selected for deep analysis two of the most
advanced schemes in the Metropolitan area, nominated
by the police themselves, and compared them with two
areas where there were no schemes. Each involved
around 500 households.
"If
the most promising schemes were later shown to have
little effect on crime, it would not be expected that
less promising schemes would be any more
successful," he reported.
The
Home Office said that Bennett's study did not
invalidate the neighbourhood watch concept and that
individual schemes do succeed. "Nobody will
claim they all do, or even that the great majority
do, but there are successes," a spokesman said.
| brian deer |
Copyright,
Times Newspapers Ltd. All rights reserved. No portion
of this article on neighbourhood watch for crime
prevention may be copied, retransmitted, reposted,
duplicated or otherwise used without the express
written approval of the copyright owner. Responses,
information and other feedback are appreciated - via
Brian Deer's homepage.
