How Christian charities and churches can partner more closely with the police to build safer and stronger communities

Speech by Assistant Commissioner Ian McPherson

To the Cinnamon Network London 24th March 2011

In London, although we have seen a decade of crime reduction, we are still faced with operational and financial challenges. For me the way forward in London is really two fold and is symptomatic of the approach we should take nationwide.

The first prong is about understanding the problem that we have. Crime and Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB) are not random- 44% of crime occurs against 4% of our population, 10% of offenders are responsible for 50% of reported crime and 20% of crime occurs in only 41 of wards.

Since I took up my post in January 2010 I have been relentless in my delivery of this message and it is a message that is of equal value to both the police but also to partners including the Church and Christian charities. Effective use of our resources on a pan London level, but also a local level, must be about using information to make sure we are targeting the most problematic places, suspects and times and supporting our most vulnerable victims. We need to keep these statistics at the forefront of our minds as we plan how best to use our resources, whether within the Police Service or within the charitable sector or Church. If we could prevent just 10% of offenders from offending again, could we reduce crime by 50%? That would be a result worth the time, effort and dedication required across our partnerships.

The second prong of a successful approach must be partnership working and it is on this aspect that I am going to concentrate today. Partnership working at both pan and local levels has always been a priority for the police service and remains so now. The reasons for this are two fold. Firstly, the harsh economic climate is forcing the public sector to take an indepth look at how we can use scarce resources more effectively. Secondly, partnership working enables organizations and individuals to use their specializations to work towards a common goal. The reality is that crime and ASB root from issues and problems that the police can never realistically hope to resolve alone. I believe strongly that to tackle the most intractable of society's problems and make a real difference we need to look beyond our circle of command to a sphere of influence.

There is already an amazing amount of work taking place across London that we do with our partners to build and maintain safer and stronger communities. For example, the Early Intervention project brings together medical experts, social services agencies and police to tackle and prevent violence. Work with Transport for London, local authorities and many others in the Safer Transport scheme has led to significant reductions in crime and ASB on our transport networks.

A particularly strong example of effective pan London partnership is the work that is being progressed in partnership with the Congress of Leaders and London Councils to look at how we can share analysis and data to ensure a joined up approach. Recent agreement has been secured for the Met to work with Children Services and Health to see whether we can improve our intelligence and the way we deal with issues such as knife crime as a sector. The new partnership information exchange will ensure that we share analysis and data with the 32 London Councils and together promote a joined up approach with regular assessments and an integrated, "triage" response. Our joint analysis will ensure that efforts are prioritized in the areas of highest harm first - hence the focus on young people. We are jointly aligning and brigading resources to tackle our most violent offenders, to protect vulnerable victims and to eliminate hotspots. Of the 12,631 knife crime offences committed in London so far this financial year, 909 of them were in Southwark, and 76 in Richmond[1]. A disproportionate number of these are committed by and on young people. That is something we cannot ignore when we task finite resources.

There are of course many similarities between what the MPS and the Church and Christian charities are trying to achieve. All three place safe and strong communities at the heart of what we do and as part of our vision of a safer London. Indeed this is a vision that is shared by many community groups and different religions. The key is in exploiting this shared vision to achieve more, together.

Whilst writing this speech I took the opportunity to discuss how and why Christian charities and churches can partner more closely with the police with the MPS senior chaplain, Jonathan Osborne. Jonathan pointed me towards a famous quote by the philosopher Pericles who said "what you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others". This reflection stands true for police officers and the work of the police service as well as Christians and those of other religions. Police work is a vocation, a way of life. Police officers are not just police officers during working hours, they have a duty to intervene to keep the peace at all times of the day and night. The same can be said for most religious people, including Christians. Christians should not be Christians only during their hours of worship at Church, but the expectation is that their faith will guide them throughout their daily lives. Religious people and police officers can be seen therefore as having similar motivation in many ways- a duty above and beyond what might be expected of the typical person to help protect others and love thy neighbour. This is a not a similarity unique between the police and Christians, but can be said to be true for real citizens, regardless of their religious persuasion.

Examples of successful partnership working between the police and religious groups are not hard to find, and the service welcomes diverse engagement that mirrors the make up of London as a multi-cultural capital city. The MPS has long enjoyed a close working relationship with the Community Safety Trust (CST) whose aim is to represent the Jewish community on a wide range of Police, governmental and policy-making bodies dealing with security and anti-semitism. The CST works with the police to protect over 300 synagogues; over 120 Jewish schools; more than 1000 Jewish communal organisations and buildings; and approximately 1000 communal events every year. Partnership working with the CST includes joint patrols, training exercises and regular consultations on strategic issues in its work against anti-semitism and protecting the Jewish community. The CST is represented on numerous Police and liaison groups, including the Racial and Violent Crime Task Force Unit at Scotland Yard and Community & Police Consultative Groups throughout Britain. It is also actively involved in working with the Police on a wider community level with interfaith groups as a way of helping to ensure good community relations.

In terms of established work between the Church, Christian charities and the police, examples abound. Street pastor schemes are growing rapidly around the country, mobilizing the Christian community. An interdenominational church response to neighbourhood/ city centre problems, street pastors are valued as volunteers who engage with people on the streets and in night-time venues to care, listen and offer practical support to those who may be vulnerable. In many ways, street pastors can be seen as extensions of Safer Neighbourhood Teams, responding to local problems by offering a tailored approach. School pastors are also widely used within the Metropolitan Police District, for example in Barking and Dagenham where 2 pastors have been placed in particularly challenging secondary schools, and there are plans underway to roll out further volunteers to schools.

Word 4 Weapons also offers a good example of partnership working. An initiative set up under the Ascension Trust and working in partnership with Street Pastors, the objective of the initiative is to reduce knife and gun crime. Currently the UK's first weapons exchange programme, it involves bibles, comics and other materials being swapped for weapons, and is currently being piloted in London. Significant numbers of weapons have already been recovered.

As well as pan London partnership working there are a great many initiatives being taken forward in partnership on a local level. Such arrangements allow local leaders to tailor their approach and their joint resources to deal with local problems.

Some of the best examples of local partnership working are those in which various religious groups are involved. In Southwark last October all churches and mosques joined up in a weekend of prayer event to show commitment against violence in the borough. This culminated in a service at Southwark Cathedral where all civic public service leaders and faith leaders committed themselves to tackling violence in the borough and "standing up for Southwark". This was followed with a multi-faith conference at City Hall where churches, faith groups and police discussed and defined what positive action these groups can take in tackling violence, including youth provision, family crisis intervention, mentoring, coaching etc. For me this is an example of partnership working at its best, drawing on expertise and commitment from different sectors of society to make our communities stronger and hence safer. This for me is the core of what needs to be done.

A further example is "Haringey Young People Empowered" (HYPE) which was formed in 2007 by a group of young people participating in a borough wide steering group. The group was set up in response to the rise in knife & violent crime and the break down of community relations between youths from different parts of the borough. Three years on, HYPE has grown into a progressive youth collective that challenges both youths and public institutions to go beyond the barriers of today and work together to create an empowered generation of young people in the borough and a bright future for Haringey, hence the motto, "The future is not something we enter. The future is something we create together." Across London there are similar projects and support mechanisms springing up, more and more of which we need to see if we are to make real, tangible progress.

Of course, so far we have only touched on external ways that the Christian Church and charities work together with the police. Along with other staff associations and support groups, ranging from religious groups to counselling groups, the Senior Chaplain and his team provide vital support for the MPS internally. As with all human beings, those who work in the Met can be troubled by all sorts of things- illness and bereavement, life changes, worries about the future, emotional hurt and relationships. Jonathan has been approaching church figures throughout London to ask them to volunteer as borough chaplains, to offer help and support to locally based officers and staff. This key role also provides borough staff with a source to ask about operational policing matters. Jonathan tells me that more volunteers are needed for this fulfilling role.

It is not my intention today to reel off a complete set of examples of partnership working between religious groups and the police. However, these are all examples of which communities in London should be proud.

But it doesn't and shouldn't stop with these examples - in order to make inroads into local crime and to improve our communities, we should be continually asking ourselves - Where can we work together more closely? What can we learn together? All of us must keep 'joint working' as a core principle in all that we do.

The truth is that, as a group of peers, we need to start an honest and open dialogue about what needs to be done in this community. If we are open with each other we can admit that we have a problem with some young boys from the black community and disadvantaged areas of London. We know that for a myriad of different reasons that a disproportionate number of these boys are losing their way and that the result is a community punctuated by violent crime. The question is, what opportunities are there for us to work together further to turn back this tide?

I have learnt an awful lot recently, while conducting analysis and research to understand our problem profile and inform our violence strategy. That's what happens when you problem solve with other people from outside your own organization and look for joint opportunities to resolve conundrums. The Wave report on Early Intervention opened my eyes to the huge potential that the treatment of babies from 0 - 3 years offers in terms of people's attitudes towards violence throughout the rest of their lives. I was astounded by the impact that synapse formation has after birth, the development of the brain is physiologically affected by the way in which their mothers or fathers interact with their babies in the very early months of life. It might seem obvious, particularly when one reflects upon Francis Xavier's famous comment, "give me the child until seven and I will show you the man", but it is, for all that, no less impactive and therefore impressive. The implications of this are huge. Together we need to find a way to address prevention at this very early stage.

That report also helped to put a lot of my past operational policing experiences into perspective. I remember being perplexed as a young officer as to how a violent teenage offender I was interviewing could be so remorseless and indifferent to the pain and suffering he had caused. I also recall being astounded on several separate occasions at how quickly young men I was speaking to would lose their temper and become violent towards me. There was no reasoning with them. I understand now that this behavior was perhaps an unfortunate product of their experiences and yes, their upbringing. International research shows that neglected children do not develop empathy in the same way that children who are cuddled and loved do. The brains of abused children are 20-30% smaller in the part governing emotions. That is tragic.

We also know that, when added to a propensity to violence, social factors act as triggers. Many of our young people today feel alienated by society and seek refuge in gangs, alcohol and violence - their opportunity for employment is reduced and they are at the mercy of economic forces they are impotent to influence. I fully understand that the relationship between the police and young people is often a thorny issue. But their lack of trust in the police, and in society is perhaps understandable when we consider that a young person growing up in London is also far more likely to be a victim of crime than the general population and that a third of all violence victims are in their 20s. We, the police need guidance on how to best get through to young people, and get them to make the right moral decisions despite their circumstances. We know that reactive policing alone just will not do it. However be assured, I know that there are some people in society that need to go to jail and for a very long time and I have every intention of putting them there. Swift justice will continue to be delivered where it is needed; but it most definitely is not the complete answer.

We talk of 'big society' in the UK, which is high on the political agenda, empowering individuals and communities with more control over their destinies. This can certainly work, but there is still more to be done.

Our challenge, as a group, is to think through these problems and to work out how, by building on the outstanding partnership working that is already being progressed, we can make further inroads.

For me the key point is that families, communities, schools, local authorities, churches, charities and the police- everyone has a part to play in ensuring a healthy and safe community. The work of the each of the individual partners can only be as good as what I call "Joint Joint Joint". Joint analysis. Joint working. Joint evaluation and learning.

[1] MPS scorecard, week ending 13th March 2011