Crime Reduction - Helping to Reduce Crime in Your Area

Crime & cohesive communities

The 2001 disturbances in Bradford, Oldham and Burnley drew attention to the role of community cohesion in developing strong, healthy communities. This paper uses data from the Local Areas Boost to the 2003 Home Office Citizenship Survey in order to investigate the relationship between community cohesion and reported levels of crime.

Title: Crime & cohesive communities
Author: Dr Elaine Wedlock
Series: Home Office Online Report 19/06
Number of pages: 20
Date published: June 2006
Availability: Download full report PDF 144Kb

The 2001 disturbances in Bradford, Oldham and Burnley drew attention to the role of community cohesion in developing strong, healthy communities. Reports into the disorder identified a common theme of a lack of interaction between individuals of different cultural, religious and racial backgrounds in local areas. Commentators drew attention to community cohesion as instrumental in promoting greater knowledge, respect and contact between various ethnic groups, and in establishing a greater sense of citizenship.

In December 2002, the Local Government Association, Home Office, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, Commission for Racial Equality and the Inter-Faith Network developed guidance for local authorities on community cohesion.

It defined a cohesive community as one where:

• there is a common vision and a sense of belonging for all communities

• the diversity of people's different backgrounds and circumstances is appreciated and positively valued

• those from different backgrounds have similar life opportunities

• strong and positive relationships are being developed between people from different backgrounds in the workplace, in schools and within neighbourhoods.

Based on this description, researchers developed a set of questions to measure attitudes towards the local neighbourhood; perceptions of others in the neighbourhood; sense of belonging; valuing diversity; similar life opportunities; race discrimination; interaction with others; positive relationships; influencing political decisions and trust in organisations. The answers to these questions from the basis of this piece of research.

Key findings

Cohesive communities have five key attributes:

• Sense of community

• Similar life opportunities

• Respect for diversity

• Political trust

• Sense of belonging

Local areas with a high sense of community, political trust and sense of belonging show significantly lower levels of 'all' reported crime.

Rates for different types of crime are predicted to reduce as sense of community goes up.

Getting a copy

Download Crime & cohesive communities PDF 144Kb

Last update: Tuesday, July 22, 2008