Drastic budget cuts will cause crime to rise, warns top cop Supt Mike Wise

Published: 29 October, 2010
by TERRY MESSENGER

CRIME is likely to start rising again in Islington as spending on prevention projects is cut in half, the borough’s top crime fighters have warned.

Islington Police Commander Mike Wise spoke out as the borough began to slash crime prevention budgets by up to 50 per cent. 

His fears were shared by the council’s community safety chief Barbara Sidnell, who claimed that five years of decreasing crime ­levels were coming to an end.

Speaking at a meeting of a joint police and council committee, Superintendent Wise warned: “If you are going to slice millions from council and police budgets, that is going to have an effect and I have to caution you about that.”

Barbara Sidnell told the Tribune: “The likelihood is that in some areas, crime and anti-social behaviour will increase.”

Projects to tackle Islington’s youth gangs are among those lined up for the chop in measures designed to comply with cuts imposed by the coalition government.

A report to Islington’s Communities Review Committee warned the borough’s £5million annual funding for the joint council and police Safer Islington Partnership (SIP) would have to be reduced by between 30 and 50 per cent over the next four years.

The report revealed that crime in Islington has fallen by 32 per cent since 2005 and claimed that SIP prevention schemes helped achieve the drop.

The council has already withdrawn £280,000 funding for 11 police community support officers working with primary schools in the borough.

Schemes under threat in the next round of cuts, to save a further £340,000, include:

• a “gang disruption” project – “designed to prevent young people becoming involved in gangs and organised crime”;
• operation Staysafe – “where joint police and council teams talk to young people who are out at night and may be at risk”
• and the SIP’s Youth Engagement Team – comprising “street-based” police and youth workers “set up to ­prevent harm by young people as perpetrators and to young people as victims”.

Cllr Sidnell said: “We are going to hopefully prioritise the main areas which people are concerned about, but at the same time it is going to be very hard. 

“In the past, we’ve worked with generations which will go on hopefully to a better life.

“But [because of these cuts] there will be generations we may not be able to work with who will end up being in and out of jail or youth offenders places.”

Central government financial support for local authorities will be reduced by 27 per cent over the next four years and by 15 per cent for the police.