Make Your Community a Safer Place to Live

The information on this web page has been provided from a factsheet from the Community Safety Branch of Durham Constabulary.

Community Safety

The objective of the Community Safety Branch for Durham Constabulary is to make Durham County a safer place in which to live, work and invest.

This is done in partnership with many agencies, including both district and local authorities and voluntary organisations.

Keep Them Out!

There are many ways of working towards safer communities. One of the most important is what is known as Target Hardening. This means making premises physically secure so as to make it as difficult as possible for persons to break in.

The fear of crime is sometimes a bigger problem than actual crime itself, and improving the physical security of someone's home, place of business or even vehicle can go a long way towards reducing that fear.

There are many types of physical security from simple window locks through to expensive CCTV systems.

Advice on all aspects of physical security can be obtained from your local Crime Prevention Officer at the telephone numbers listed below.

Neighbourhood Watch

Another very important and useful community safety tool is Neighbourhood Watch. Briefly Neighbourhood watch is about the people in a community getting together to look after their area, and to try and reduce crime and disorder within that area.
Residents are asked to act as the eyes and ears of the police, and are encouraged to report any suspicious incidents to them.
Residents know who normally visits their streets, what cars are normally parked there. So they are in a much better position to know when strangers are in their midst.

Members of Neighbourhood Watch Schemes are given all the crime prevention advice they require, and statistics prove that as a general rule, the crime rates fall within areas where Neighbourhood Watch operates.

Every Police Division in County Durham has a dedicated NHW Co-ordinator. For further information, contact your local police station.

The Youth Action Approach

This approach is a way of involving and enabling young people to tackle crime and community safety themes. The approach aims to empower young people as partners in community safety. This is achieved through their involvement in free-standing groups based in a school, youth organisation, or neighbourhood, in fact, any of the places where young people meet.

Youth Action involves groups of young people who work together on initiatives within their own areas which will improve the quality of life for them or other members of their communities.

The main thing to consider is that the young people choose who is their group, how the group is run and which initiatives to undertake. They have the power.

Each group will need an adult to guide and advise them, and offer support. It is not the job of the monitoring adult to interfere or take over, but to be constructive when necessary and offer guidance when it is required or asked for. The group may also benefit from having a police co-ordinator to offer guidance and support to the monitoring adult and also to 'drop in' from time to time. In addition, the Officer will liaise with others to inform you of County initiatives which you can take part in or other schemes which are available.

What Sort of Initiatives Can We Do?

The type of project or initiative you can do are up to you but below are some ideas which other groups have tackled.

Property marking, bike stamping, environmental projects such as community areas, park areas, working with the elderly, peer-led education such as drugs awareness or road safety, bullying projects, counselling and mentoring, outdoor activity clubs - indeed the list is endless and YOU may have an idea which is unique to YOUR area.

Is Money Important?

You will find at some stage that you will need to find some money from somewhere to help with a project you are doing. You could come up with your own fund raising ideas or ask local companies to sponsor the group. You could also try the community safety department of the local council, parish councils or the county council for help and advice of where to get funding.

Youth action is fun and makes a difference to where you live!

For more details on any of the information listed on this web page, you can contact your local Divisional Community Safety Unit on the numbers below:

Wear and Tees Tel: 01388 603 566

Sedgefield Tel: 01325 314 401

Chester le Street and Durham Tel: 0191 386 4222

Easington Tel: 0191 586 2621

Derwentside Tel: 01207 504 204


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