The Woolwich Model - How citizens can tackle anti-social behaviour

13th Jul 2010; 10:00

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RSA Debate

The RSA has commissioned a new report which speaks to the challenge of anti-social behaviour.

The report argues that while public concern for low-level disorder remains high, citizens have, for a number of reasons, withdrawn from day-to-day intervention. At the same time, policy has tended to focus on top-down, professionally-centred approaches to tackling the problem.

 

The report suggests there could be great gains in taking a different approach – modelled on first aid – where people, including those with direct responsibility for managing the local public realm, are trained in basic community safety skills. Giving people the capacity to respond to anti-social behaviour and defuse conflict could, if pursued alongside continuing support for other forms of community policing, help reduce the problem and people’s concern about it, while bringing wider benefits. Perhaps, most significantly, this could provide just one example where the real potential of co-production – where citizens are actively engaged in service delivery and design – could be met.

The report contends that “co-producing' local social order is more important today than ever before, because even though crime has fallen, perceptions of crime, anti-social behaviour and the capacity of the police to deal with it have improved more slowly.

The report will be launched at the RSA with a panel of expert speakers, to include:
Nick Herbert MP, Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice; Ben Rogers, author of the RSA-commissioned report "The Woolwich Model - How citizens can tackle anti-social behaviour" and Adrian Hanstock, Acting Commander for Neighbourhood policing and Anti-social behaviour in the Metropolitan Police. 

Chair: Matthew Taylor, Chief executive of the RSA.

Download the Report

The Woolwich Model - Can citizens tackle anti-social behaviour?
Ben Rogers (RSA Pamphlets, 2010)

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