Overview of Crime Prevention in Regions and Communities. The Example of Lower Saxony

In Germany, crime prevention efforts are organized by all three levels of government: Federal, state and local. Local communities rarely possess the resources necessary for state-of-the-art policy development in this field and therefore often cooperate closely by exchanging local experience and rely on consultative and administrative support from the state level. In Lower Saxony, this support is provided by the State Crime Prevention Council (Landespräventionsrat), which is primarily an association of local crime prevention councils and NGOs working in this field, and by its Secretariat, which is part of the Lower Saxony Ministry of Justice. At the local level, some communities have conducted regional criminological analyses to asses the specific needs for prevention programmes and are conducting strategies aiming at the prevention of hate crimes, improving the development of children and youths, dealing with violence in the family and reducing truancy from school, to name but a few examples. The Secretariat supports these activities by serving the Council‘s Board of Directors, by providing liaison to the relevant ministries (Justice, Interior, Education, Social Affairs) and by developing and administering training programmes for local officials as well as special pilot projects such as introducing the „Communities that care“-approach. The presentation highlights the structures and outcomes of these crime prevention measures on the local level in the regions and communities in the state of Lower Saxony.