Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 20 October 2022
52. Deputy Richard Bruton asked the Minister for Justice if she will indicate the learnings to date from the pilot initiatives in the new approach to community policing; and the implications they have for the roll-out of the approach nationwide. [51942/22]
Amharc ar fhreagraCommunity safety is about people being safe and feeling safe within their communities. Ireland is generally regarded as a safe country in international terms, with relatively low crime rates and a general feeling of safety and security. However, we recognise that this is not the case in every community and that people living in some areas can experience a different reality.
A community safety approach prioritises issues identified by the community itself as safety concerns and increases community confidence in service providers.
My Department's Community Safety Policy will ensure communities are safer and feel safer by making community safety a whole of Government responsibility and priority, to be delivered through Local Community Safety Partnerships (LCSPs), supported through a national governance structure.
The LCSPs will bring all services and the community together at local authority level, building upon and replacing existing Joint Policing Committees, to serve as a forum for discussion and decisions on community priorities.
This means State services working with each other and the community to ensure there is better coordination between services such as educational and youth work with young people, the availability of local health and mental health services, drug prevention, housing and the built environment, and actions taken to combat alcohol and substance abuse, domestic abuse, youth crime, anti-social behaviour, and hate crime.The partnership approach is built on two premises:
1. Every community is different and has different problems and issues; and
2. Responding to those problems and issues requires a range of inputs from across Government, local services, voluntary sector and the community itself.
Three pilot LCSPs have been fully established in Dublin North Inner City, Longford and Waterford. The pilots have been working to develop unique community safety plans, and the Longford Local Community Safety Pilot published its plan on 19 September.
The pilots will run for two years and each pilot is subject to an ongoing independent evaluation, lasting for the 24 month duration of the pilots. The overall aim of the evaluation is to provide actionable evidence to help inform the development of the LCSPs and their rollout across the country on completion of the pilot period, after the Policing, Security and Community Safety Bill is enacted.
Over time, the evaluation will assess how well the Local Community Safety Partnership pilots identified the priorities and concerns of their respective communities; how the LCSPs conducted their work; the engagement and relationships the LCSPs have had with the local communities; and the impact of the LCSP work on community safety.
Findings from the evaluation process will inform future rollout of the LCSP model in every local authority area. The initial phase of fieldwork was focused on reviewing processes and establishing a baseline for any outcomes of the work of the Partnership pilots over the next two years.
Establishing a baseline is an important aspect of the evaluation as it ensures a solid understanding of the starting point against which to compare the data at the latter stages of the evaluation.
A baseline report has been completed and submitted to the Department and will be published on the Department’s new community safety website this month.
The mid-term evaluation, which will report on findings from the pilots, is due in Q4 2022.
