§ Mr. HendryTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what crime prevention initiatives his Department is currently supporting.
§ Mr. JackWe are currently supporting 20 safer cities projects and planning the creation of a new type of project in order to fulfil our objective of achieving up to 40. We are setting up a National Board of Crime Prevention. The ministerial group on crime prevention will meet soon with its new membership. We are developing a good practice guide to provide advice for practitioners on the setting up and evaluation of crime prevention initiatives.
We continue to provide a contribution to the core costs of Crime Concern, the independent crime prevention organisation, and to fund the Home Office crime prevention centre to provide training and advice to police crime prevention officers and others. We run various publicity programmes and, in particular, we are following up the success of Car Crime Prevention Year. We continue to encourage the establishment of neighbourhood watch schemes and of crime prevention panels and the development of local multi-agency partnerships for crime prevention. Our police research group is currently supporting 16 crime prevention research and development initiatives. In addition, the programme development unit is funding a range of innovative local projects, which includes schemes aimed at tackling family violence. The probation service grants scheme also supports crime prevention projects.