PCCs, PFCCs and Deputy Mayors play a crucial role in preventing crime, improving community safety and rehabilitating offenders across England and Wales.
A number of films are featured on this page, including interviews with stakeholders and partner organisations who have benefitted from PCC-driven projects that help to tackle the underlying causes of crime and improve community safety. These films highlight the unique role that PCCs and their equivalents play in facilitating programmes to address the root causes of criminal behaviour, as well as showing that PCCs can deliver more at a local level in supporting and leading existing prevention partnerships.
Elected Police and Crime Commissioners, PFCCs and Deputy Mayors deliver prevention through their extensive partnership work, commissioning and grant making, and by holding chief constables to account.
The best way to prevent crime is to stop it happening in the first place, and that is why PCCs have adapted a whole-system approach by working with partners across not just policing, but in health, social care, local authorities, and charities.
Addictions and substance misuse
Police and Crime Commissioners work collaboratively with partners in the health, education and criminal justice spaces in order to reduce demand for drugs, prevent drug-use, and widen access to treatment and recovery, while delivering strong enforcement against those accountable for supplying drugs.
PCCs have also been on the frontline in commissioning drug education programmes, which have often been co-commissioned with NHS England. The Drug Education Programme explained in the above video is for over 18s, and has been running for many years. Individuals who successfully take part in the scheme are also offered the chance to take part in further diversionary activity. Watch for more information about the importance of early intervention in tackling drug-related offending, and in keeping communities safe from the harms of substance misuse.
Violence against women and girls
PCCs are well placed to deliver services to victims, having oversight of how the CJS locally is meeting their needs. The Ministry of Justice provides PCCs with grant funding each year to commission practical and emotional support services for victims of all crime types in their local force area.
This funding allows commissioners to invest in the development of services to deliver high-quality support to victims of crime, often in support of organisations like Streetlight who meet the basic needs of local victims of violence against women and girls, while also providing mechanisms to prevent further exploitation by perpetrators.
Serious violence
Since 2019, PCCs have been leading on the development and implementation of Violence Reduction Units (VRUs) in 18 areas across the country. Some VRUs have initiated Navigator projects, which offer support to young people who are seeking treatment following violent incidents. Navigators provide guidance, including referrals to specialist support services relating to mental health, education and employment, with the ultimate aim of preventing them from re-entering the vicious cycles of trauma and violence.
PCCs have also funded crucial detached youth work, where youth workers engage with young people in their environments, such as streets, parks, or other community settings. This work broadens the horizons of young people, opening their minds to serious themes and subjects which may prove hazardous to their future prospects, and seeks to prevent young people from going down a path of serious, violent and organised crime.
Criminal justice
Anti-social behaviour
Anti-social behaviour matters to local communities. YouGov research released as part of ASB Awareness Week in 2024 found more than one in four feel unsafe in their local area.
PCCs have led the way across England and Wales, funding the deployment of both police officers and community-based wardens to heighten police visibility, and make communities feel safer. As a result, hundreds of extra hours of police patrols and community safety patrols have been added, with reports of anti-social behaviour having decreased.
Rehabilitation and early intervention
“We all know that putting someone into prison is not going to solve the issue, and that’s why we look at the support and complex needs and piece it all together.”
PCCs, PFCCs and Deputy Mayors work with local partners in areas relating to vulnerability such as social care, mental health, drug and alcohol addiction, homelessness, and police custody with the aim of preventing crime and supporting local businesses and retailers.
With support and funding from PCCs, Business Crime Reduction Partnerships administer a range of impactful initiatives designed to reduce crime and anti-social behaviour in local communities, which include vulnerability awareness and support, early youth intervention and the provision intelligence briefings for local retailers and partners.