Cutting Crime Impact project kicks off

Kick-off meeting

Paul van Soomeren and Bram van Dijk represented DSP-groep at the CCI kick-off meeting.  The event was the starting point for the international CCI project to help police forces across Europe find innovative ways to improve how they fight high impact crime.

Greater Manchester Police (GMP) along with five other European Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) discussed, with organisations from across Europe and security experts, how evidence-based design research can be used to tackle these crimes.

The €3.1Million funding has been awarded by the European Commission Horizon 2020 Security Research Programme. The event will consider the ways in which organisations and LEAs are currently tackling crime and will discuss solutions to cutting crime more cohesively. The Design Against Crime Solution Centre at the University of Salford will support LEAs in investigating how key roles and services are delivered by each participating police force. This will enable the design and development of practical toolkits tailored to the needs of LEAs.

Dr Caroline Davey, Director of the Design Against Crime Solution Centre and CCI Project Lead said: “This project will bring real evidence-based results in order to help LEAs tackle significant crime and insecurity issues. The negative impact crime has on the quality of citizens’ lives, their feelings of community cohesion and of safety and security is of great importance. The psychological and emotional impact of such crimes is far reaching and more effort needs to be spent on their prevention. Discussions from this first meeting will be a starting point for the CCI project, which will eventually result in people feeling more safe and secure in their everyday lives.”

Professor Alexander Siedschlag, Advisory Board member to the CCI project and Chair of Homeland Security at The Pennsylvania State University said: “I look forward to attending this event and being part of the CCI project, which will advance towards an extended European Security Model integrating the prevention, investigation and mitigation of high impact petty crime. The importance of finding solutions to tackle such crimes is imperative in improving citizens’ feelings of security. CCI may also provide a good practice model for more comprehensive approaches to homeland security.”

CCI Partners

The full list of law enforcement agencies working on the project is:

Greater Manchester Police – UK, National Police of the Netherlands, Politsei- ja Piirivalveamet – Estonia, Policia Municipal de Lisboa, Camara Municipal de Lisboa – Portugal, Landeskriminalamt Niedersachsen – Germany, Departament d’Interior – Generalitat de Catalunya – Spain,

Members of the CCI project consortium: DSP groep bv – the Netherlands, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen – the Netherlands, Deutscher Präventionstag Institut – Germany, European Forum for Urban Security (Efus) – France, Globaz SA – Portugal

Members of the advisory board are: Ministry of Security and Justice, the Netherlands, Italian Forum for Urban Security, Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge, Chair of Homeland Security and Public Health Sciences, The Pennsylvania State University, European Network of Law Enforcement Technology Services – the Netherlands, Chair of EU COST Action TU1203, Crime Prevention Through Urban Design & Planning (CP-UDP) – Italy