Crime Prevention
We will work in partnership to understand and tackle the root causes of crime and serious violence through early intervention and rehabilitating people who have offended, while reducing opportunities for people to commit crime.
Crime prevention is a key priority for the Police and Crime Commissioner. It has always been part of the role of policing but it cannot be achieved by policing alone.
From early intervention with young people to prevent them getting drawn into a life of crime, to breaking the cycle of reoffending for those people leaving prison, this requires working in partnership with a range of agencies.
Cambridgeshire Constabulary is working with local partners to prepare a strategy to prevent and reduce serious violence.
The Commissioner will encourage local partners to intervene earlier for the most vulnerable young people, to keep children and young people away from crime. The Commissioner has set up a youth fund which charities supporting young people can bid into. The link to bid is below:
Cambridgeshire Constabulary supports Community Safety Partnerships and schemes, such as Neighbourhood Watch and Speedwatch, to tackle local priority issues.
The Eastern Cyber Resilience Centre is part of a national network of centres, established by the Home Office to help businesses, charities and public sector organisations tackle the rising threat of cyber-attack.
The Centre is a not-for profit limited company that is staffed by police and funded through a mixture of private and public money. Sitting alongside the existing Police Cyber Protect Network its key objectives are raising awareness of cyber risks and providing affordable services to its members to help them recognise their own vulnerabilities and improve their cyber resilience.
Working alongside partners in the private cyber sector, academia and the police, the centre is uniquely placed in its ability to reach out to regional businesses and help them to become more secure in the online space.
For more information please visit the website www.ecrcentre.co.uk or contact one of the team:
Centre Director – T/Detective Superintendent Paul Lopez – paul.lopez@ecrcentre.co.uk
Head of Cyber and Innovation – DI Fiona Bail – Fiona.bail@ecrcentre.co.uk
Business Development Manager – Mel Lennon – mel.lennon@ecrcentre.co.uk
A new legal duty will require organisations such as police, local authorities and criminal justice agencies to work together, share information and publish actions they need to take collectively to reduce violent crime. The Commissioner has been supporting agencies to take a united approach. Cambridgeshire Constabulary is working with local partners to prepare a strategy to prevent and reduce serious violence.
The PCC established and now chairs a new High Harms Board to increase consistency in prevention work and support agencies as they work together to tackle serious crime relating to drugs, serious and organised crime, violence against women and girls and serious violence. Many of these issues and their causes can overlap. Find out more here.
The Constabulary also undertake targeted enforcement and prevention work to crackdown on county lines exploitation and drug supply, and knife crime. Knife crime prevention includes school visits, educational and awareness-raising programmes, weapons sweeps, amnesty bins, and retail test purchasing operations.
The OPCC has commissioned a programme of engagement with young people across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough to better understand how safe they feel and how this could be improved. The insights gain from this will inform future work in this area.
The Government’s ‘From harm to hope’ 10 year drug strategy was published in December 2021. It aims to cut crime and save lives through:
- Breaking drugs supply chains
- Delivering a world class treatment and recovery system
- Achieving a generational shift in the demand for drugs.
Policing plays a key role in breaking drugs supply chains through their enforcement work. Drug treatment and recovery is managed through public health services. Partnership working is key. A local delivery plan is overseen by the Drug and Alcohol Delivery Board. The Commissioner chairs the Countywide High Harms Board which provides strategic direction and leadership across four priority issues including the delivery of the harm to hope drugs strategy. The Commissioner has also taken on the role of providing oversight for the delivery of the drug strategy locally.
Find out more about Watch schemes in the county, here.
This page will be regularly updated in line with progress against the Commissioner’s Police and Crime Plan objectives.
