Safer Streets 5 – PCC secures £1m to improve safety in Bedfordshire

ASB interventions

• Handheld forensic identification spray to be issued to frontline officers so that evidence can be used to link an offender back to a specific crime.

• A targeted schools educational programme delivered by Luton All Women’s Centre focussing on improving understanding of ASB and its impact.

• Mobile CCTV cameras available to be deployed at locations across Bedfordshire that are identified as areas where motorcycle users are causing ASB.

• Funding for Bedfordshire and Luton Community Foundation (BLCF) for the creation of a small grant fund that offers funding for projects to registered charities. Supporting arts, culture and heritage projects that use creativity to change behaviours of victims/perpetrators of crime.

• Provide the Speed Watch Co-ordinator with Mobile Speed Indicator devices to expand the speed watch scheme into rural communities.

Neighbourhood Crime

• Provide property marking burglary reduction packages to community officers and Bobby scheme to issue to vulnerable residents/victims of burglary.

• Provide property marking business security packs to farms and businesses in rural areas via officers when they are dealing with vulnerable victims or a victim of theft.

• Invest in training in Watch Schemes throughout Beds and expand to create a rural watch scheme enabling residents to become additional visible deterrents and collate information and intelligence to submit to the force.

• Enable officers to be able to identify farm machinery via the CESAR database. The CESAR registration database is accessible 24 hours a day 365 days a year to provide support to officers at the roadside about equipment stopped in suspicious circumstances. Equipment can be checked and the ownership of a machine can be instantly determined.

• Funding for Supportive Pathways scheme led by You Turn Futures which is service designed to support young people to move away from neighbourhood crime and support those at risk of criminality.

• Funding to enable the Force’s Design Out Crime Officers (DOCO’s) to implement and source funding for interventions highlighted from surveys the officers conduct and install signage to raise awareness of initiatives.

• Funding for Onwards and Upwards XO Bikes who provide training and support to ex-offenders upskilling them to refurbish old bikes that have been donated. Giving the charity the opportunity to invest in more projects and offer more places and opportunities to ex-offenders to build their skills and confidence to enable entry in to er full time employment.

VAWG

• Employ VAWG Prevention workers at Luton All Women’s Centre to deliver educational programmes across schools, school staff/ parent workshops and training to support watch scheme volunteers.

• Fund Performance in Education (PIE) who use theatre to educate and engage with young people (KS4/KS5), to stimulate learning, inspire involvement, and deliver bystander training interventions.

• Implementation of Pol-Ed across the schools network for KS2-KS4. Pol-Ed is an educational programme to keep children safe by developing their understanding of risks, consequences, and the law and to develop their resilience.

• Promote bystander training by offering free online training interventions with particular focus on the nighttime economy and watch volunteers.