Preventing Crime & Creating Safer Communities
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St Werburgh's Safer Streets Project

1. Introduction

The purpose of the Safer Streets project has been to provide the research backing for a community safety action plan to make St Werburgh's a safer neighbourhood in which to live, work and play. St Werburgh's Neighbourhood Association aim to put the plan into action, with the support of the Council and the Police.

The work, undertaken in the past few months, has included the collection and analysis of crime statistics provided by Avon and Somerset police, consultation with representatives from various local organisations and a household survey of local residents. A team of experienced researchers from the University of the West of England worked in close collaboration with members of St Werburgh's Neighbourhood Association who helped with some of the practical aspects of the research process.

Crime, anti-social behaviour and the fear of crime stem from a complex set of interacting circumstances. Every neighbourhood has a unique combination of dynamics and needs. For these reasons, attempts to prevent neighbourhood crime, incivilities and associated fears are not amenable to off the peg solutions and solutions must be tailored to meet the demands of the local situation.

Local people and community based organisations know best what the problems and solutions are, which is why residents and other organisations were consulted during the study.

1.1 St. Werburgh's Crime Profile

This section of the report starts with a 'Health Warning! Information has been provided by the local police for the St. Werburgh's police beat area. However, this has been analysed in isolation. Similarly demographic data is not available for the beat and whilst there is basic information in terms of number of crimes for Ashley (which is both the sector and the ward), Ashley contains five different areas (Montpelier, St. Paul's, Cotham, Kingsdown and St. Werburgh's) and a population of nearly 15,000 so it would be difficult to assess how representative a comparison this would be. The Ashley ward profile produced by Bristol City Council states that the crime rate in the ward is above the city average but fear of crime is low.

The statistics themselves need to be seen very much as a small part of a multi-faceted picture of crime and disorder in the area and their inclusion is this study is intended to compliment (or perhaps contrast) views of those who live, work or visit St. Werburgh's. We wanted to assess whether the official view of crime in the area tallies with the problems and issues identified by those residents and other organisations we talked to and surveyed.

1.2 Brief Background

The St. Werburgh's beat area is a mixture of residential addresses, small business premises and industrial units. The area is severed by a railway line and flanked on both sides by large open spaces and council owned allotments. The area contains a city farm and a former church which is now a centre of excellence for rock climbing.

1.3 Crime in St. Werburgh's

During 2000/01 there were 477 recorded crimes for St. Werburgh's and during 2001/02 544: an increase of 14%. The chart below shows the pattern monthly, highlighting higher crime levels from November 2000 to August 2001. From September 2001 Onwards levels are lower, although the current financial year figures would be needed to confirm whether the upward trend in the last month continues.

In terms of types of crime during 2001/02, 14.3% of all offences recorded were burglary dwelling and 12.1% other criminal damage. This is a change from the previous year when theft from motor vehicles made up the greatest proportion (17.2%).

*(figures include attempts)

The chart above shows the changes in terms of actual numbers.

There have been significant drops in vehicle crime, sexual offences and drug offences, although for the latter two the numbers are very small.

Big increases have occurred in robbery, and criminal damage both from motor vehicles and other. The Police Annual Report for Central Bristol notes that in Ashley sector there has been a ‘significant rise in street crime due to drug abuse’ and the police are continuing to focus both on tackling local drug dealing and on an anti-robbery strategy. The increases in burglary dwelling and burglary other could also be linked to drugs issues in the area.

For Ashley sector 599 vehicle crime offences, 246 domestic burglaries and 664 offences of violent crime were recorded in 2000/01.

1.4 Violent Crime

Violent crime comprises violence against the person (VAP), robbery and sexual offences. VAP has increased from 48 to 58 offences year on year and as the charts show, this is due to a 17% increase in common assault. VAP seems to be worse during the summer months whereas there is no obvious pattern with robbery.

Domestic violence has also risen from 14 recorded offences in 2000/01 to 19 in 2001/02: however an increase may be seen as positive as it could indicate people are more willing to report this type of offence to the police.

In terms of racially motivated crime only one offence of racially aggravated harassment was recorded in 2000/01 and one of racially aggravated assault in 2001/02. However recorded crime statistics are not the best source of data for these types of offence as there is significant underreporting.

1.5 Burglary

Burglary has increased from 86 offences in St. Werburgh's in 2000/01 to 114 in 2001/02: an increase of 32% spread equally between burglary dwelling and burglary other. For non-residential burglary there appears to have been a rise in those from office/industry.

As the chart below shows, there is no clear seasonality pattern to offences, although for dwellings there are peaks in January 2001, August 2001 and January / February 2002. This could be partly due to post Christmas activity or linked to the release of a particular individual criminal.

Vehicle crime

Both theft of and theft from a motor vehicle have dropped over the last year by 19% and 27% respectively, although criminal damage to motor vehicles has increased by a third. As the graph overleaf shows, the higher theft from motor vehicle figures in 2000/01 are largely due to a big increase in offences between November 2000 and February 2001. There has also been a reduction in attempts: from 7 to 0 year on year for attempted theft of vehicles and from 14 to 2 for attempted theft from. The smallest fall has been for vehicle interference from 9 to 8 offences but the figures are very small for both years.

1.6 Other crime

Figures have also been provided for a number of other crimes listed in the table below.

1.7 Conclusions

Based solely on the above data the issues identified by the crime statistics are:

• burglary dwelling - this has increased year on year and also tends to be a source of concern for local people;
• criminal damage to motor vehicles – despite a decrease in theft of and theft from vehicles, this has increased significantly;
• robbery and common assault – both have shown increases.

However, as mentioned at the beginning of this summary report, crime statistics provide only a partial picture about the crime, disorder and fear of crime problems within an area. Crime may or may not be reported for a number of reasons. It should be noted that those crimes that have increased year on year, according to the crime statistics namely burglary dwelling and criminal damage to motor vehicles are those crimes that victims need a crime reference number in order to process an insurance claim and thus this fact might influence the levels of reporting of these particular types of crime.

The day to day problems of crime and fear of crime are best known by local residents and local agencies and organisations who live and work in that Area and accordingly the next section of the report discusses the findings of the residents survey and identifies where the issues raised by residents are reflected by other agencies or organisations based in or working in St Werburgh's.