Interagency Crime Prevention for Rail Station Environs

1. PATREC Interagency Crime Prevention for Rail Station Environs Trudi Cooper2, Terence Love1, Fred Affleck1, Erin Donovan2 1 Curtin University, Perth, WA, Australia 2 Edith Cowan University, Perth, WA, Australia

2. Funding • Office of Crime Prevention (OCP) • Public Transport Authority (PTA) • City of Armadale (CoA) • City of Gosnells (CoG) • City of Joondalup (CoJ) • City of Swan (CoS)

3. City of Armadale City of Gosnells City of Joondalup City of Swan WA Passenger Transport Authority (Transit Guards) WA Passenger Transport Authority (Community Education) Armadale Youth Resource Centre CentreCare, Joondalup C of G APLOs C of G Safer Cities C of G Travelsmart C of G Youth Services Corridors College, Midland DCD, Joondalup DCD, Midland DCD, Armadale DrugArm, Armadale ECU Youth Work, Joondalup GreatMates, Kelmscott Hills Community Support Group Joondalup Youth Support Services Juvenile Justice, Midland Lakeside Joondalup Shopping Centre Mission Australia, Gosnells Police & Citizens Youth Club, Midland WA Police Crime Prevention, Gosnells YMCA mobile youth service, Joondalup Participants

4. Map

5. Real life problem • Public concern about anti-social behaviour by some young people in public and pseudo-public spaces around station environs • Develop interagency collaboration between youth agencies and PTA to enable sustainable locally appropriate solutions

6. Factors that shaped the project - Office of Crime Prevention • Address real life crime prevention and public safety problem • Practical outcomes • Sustained commitment by community partners to on-going collaboration after project completion • Transferable model of interagency collaboration • Process informed by relevant academic literature Implies: Action research method plus inter-agency collaboration

7. Factors that shaped the project - Participating agencies • Multiple (6) collaborating funding partners with diverse perceptions, goals, practices and operational priorities • Participation by large number of community agencies • Shared commitment to community safety Implies: Interagency collaboration, locality based

8. Policy background • Government policies encourage increased public transport usage • Fear of groups of young people inhibits some patrons’ rail use • No existing relationship between PTA and local youth agencies • History of conflict between some young people and various security services that police pseudo-public space

9. Research literature – interagency collaboration • Interagency collaboration important because actions of agencies positively and negatively affect each others’ work in a locality • Interagency collaboration extremely difficult to establish and maintain • Variance of operational practices, values, goals and roles exacerbates problems Partner agencies have diverse organisational goals, roles and values

10. Interagency collaboration is important • Enables complex problems to be addressed effectively • Mobilises more resources • Synergies between operations • Experience indicates uncoordinated single agency responses: • Move ‘problem behaviour’ from one location to another at considerable expense • Increase youth alienation, which may increase anti-social behaviour

11. Known problems of interagency collaboration • Potential misunderstandings about goals, priorities and roles of other agencies • Miscommunication when issues oversimplified and viewed only from perspective of each agency’s central concerns • Group dynamics and interagency politics • Individual agencies dominate discussions • Inaction if problem(s) seem too complex and intractable • People try to ‘shift the problem’ to another agency (related to feelings of helplessness/ hopelessness above)

12. Research literature – young people • Well-documented worldwide history of conflict between young people and authorities in public space and public concern • ‘Hanging out’ easily escalates to public disorder offences if not handled carefully • Young people are the age group most likely to be victims of crime (especially young men) Community perceptions of ‘anti-social’ behaviour by young people are variable and often include both legal and illegal behaviour

13. Research literature – crime prevention • Increased policing is expensive and frequently moves location of problem rather than prevents it • Better to control problem ‘in situ’ than displace crime • Satisfactory ‘in situ’ management requires physical, environmental, cultural or relationship changes Identify local priorities and possibilities

14. Research methodology • Action Research forsupporting inter-agency collaboration, resolving group conflicts, overcoming apathy and hopelessness, and as a foundation for sustainable outcomes • Soft Systems Method for contextual data collection, analysis, choosing interventions

15. Transferable model principles - 1 • Build understanding of roles and priorities of different agencies • Build respectful personal relationships between people in different agencies and organisations Identify shared goals

16. Transferable model principles - 2 • Explore how the work of each organisation positively or negatively affects other agencies • Acknowledge where roles and priorities differ Identify local actions that can support the goals of multiple participants

17. Transferable model process - 1Understand agencies’ perceptions of issues • Separate initial meetings with agencies whose goals, purposes, roles or values conflict • Create ‘rich pictures’ for each locality

18. Transferable model process - 2Build mutual understanding & respect and identify local issues • Highly-structured joint meeting to share information about roles and priorities • Explore interrelationships between work of different organisations; • Share and discuss ‘rich pictures’; • Use discussion to identify priority issues where collaboration could bring about positive change

19. Transferable model process - 3Plan, implement and evaluate collaborative action • Agree roles, processes and timeline for interventions • Hold additional meetings as required to: • Maintain momentum • Review progress • Identify obstacles • Modify plans (action research model) • Ensure that decisions are acted upon • Ensure relationships are maintained and problems are solved collaboratively

20. Transferable model process - 4Project evaluation and closure • Document and share achievements and acknowledge barriers • Make local arrangements to continue collaboration • Maximise learning by sharing experiences • Acknowledge and celebrate successes (effective collaboration isn’t easy)

21. Things that support the process • Process begins with the right local organisations • Initial group includes: • Activists • Creative problem solvers • People with sufficient seniority and sufficient organisational flexibility • Solution-focused individuals

22. Things that inhibit the process • Group members feel local situation is too hopeless to try anything • People are over-constrained by bureaucratic procedures or mindsets • People with insufficient authority to do anything • Lack of continuity of involvement • Participants have too many competing priorities • Key organisations omitted from initial process