Crime Reduction Initiative

The Crime Reduction Initiatives, (CRI), a national charity working to create safer and healthier communities, is using LookOut, an automated mobile phone-based safety system to help protect its Street Outreach Team in Cambridge.

The team was originally commissioned by Cambridge City Council in 2003 to specifically tackle rough sleeping, street based drug and alcohol use, begging and sex working.  CRI in Cambridge works in partnership with a range of organisations to meet the accommodation and support requirements of these individuals, in order to ensure that the number of rough sleepers in the city is kept to a minimum. When the project began there were more than thirty rough sleepers in central Cambridge. This figure is now below ten.

The CRI originally deployed a manual “buddy type” system to protect its workers by using hostel staff from other services with a call system. However, it was not totally reliable as colleagues were not always available to answer the phone. The introduction of an automated solution means that nothing is left to chance and an alarm is automatically raised if the system is not updated by the lone worker.

The Outreach Team often works anti social hours, touring the streets of Cambridge providing help and support to rough sleepers who often suffer from mental health, alcohol, drug or behavioral problems. If a team member raises an alarm it is imperative they are found quickly so that the necessary help and support can be provided by project leaders, the police or the “City Rangers”, an organization that works in close partnership with the Council to promote safety and well-being in Cambridge.

The nature of street outreach work means that team members are constantly moving to different locations within the city looking for rough sleepers they have been made aware of by the general public, wardens or the police. They use LookOut call to keep colleagues in the office informed of their whereabouts, which is done very easily by pressing a single button on a mobile phone, as Rachel Everitt, Team Leader for the CRI explains:

“The nature of outreach work means that our key workers are rarely in the same location for more than about fifteen minutes. LookOut call provides them with a very easy and discrete way to tell us where they are. All they have to do is press a button on their phone and give a brief description of where they are and how long they think they are going to be. When they move on, they just press the button again to update the system. LookOut call is very unobtrusive, which is really important for us, as our success depends on us building relationships and trust with our clients”.

The CRI Cambridge team has recently won an award for their excellent partnership working with the City Council and the Police, this was presented at the Communities and Local Government National Conference that took place in June this year.

The Government target is to reduce rough sleeping to zero by 2012.