Community Alcohol Partnerships have today published a report, Progress through Partnerships: Creating Safer Communities, showing the positive impacts that the 88 CAPs in place across the UK have had on crime, anti-social behavior, litter, residents’ feelings of safety and underage/proxy purchasing.
Some of the successes of Community Alcohol Partnerships include:
- a 30% reduction in alcohol related anti-social behaviour in the CAP area compared with a 7.4% drop in matched control areas in Barnsley
- a 39.5% reduction in alcohol-related youth anti-social behaviour in Brecon
- an 18% reduction in alcohol-related crime and an estimated 12.5%-25% reduction in alcohol seizures from young people in East Edinburgh
- an 83% decrease in police letters to parents of under 18s caught with alcohol and a 61% decrease in crime and disorder reports linked to street drinking in Great Yarmouth CAP area compared to a 25% decrease across the rest of Norfolk
- a 41% decrease in anti-social behavior in Hayling Island, Hampshire
- a 46% decrease in anti-social behaviour, 87% decrease in alcohol seizures from young people and an 80% decrease in youth disorder in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets
Mike Penning, Minister of State for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims, welcomed the report, saying: “I welcome the reduction in alcohol-related youth anti-social behaviour. The CAP model has promoted effective and innovative partnership work between enforcement agencies, businesses and local community groups and has clearly played an important part in this. I would encourage every area with evidence of alcohol-related youth crime to give serious consideration to setting up a CAP to reduce crime and build safer neighbourhoods.”
ACS chief executive James Lowman said: “We are proud to be board members of CAP and to have played a part in its success. CAPs make a real and practical difference in getting retailers, the police, schools, local authorities and other stakeholders together to find lasting ways of tackling underage drinking.”
More information about Community Alcohol Partnerships can be found at http://www.communityalcoholpartnerships.co.uk/
