£50,000 plan to crack down on violence
Russell Steele • Published 8 Mar 2010 14:00
INVERCLYDE has been hand-picked for a pioneering new project which aims to cut weapon carrying and reduce violent crime.
The Tele can reveal the Scottish Government has given Inverclyde Council a £50,000 grant to set up an influential Joint Action Group with a brief to learn about the culture of violence in the area and identify ways to reduce it.
The purpose of the new team will be to bring about 'positive cultural change on violence and weapon carrying' in the district.
News of the programme comes hot on the heels of the Tele's Stop Knives Save Lives partnership with local businesses, the police and Crimestoppers, which a whole host of community figures, politicians and members of the public have been quick to back.
Inverclyde is the first place in the country to be selected for the new scheme, following behind the scenes talks about the successful No Knives Better Lives initiative, which was piloted in our schools before anywhere else.
A team is now in place to take the project forward and they will work together for a year.
The council will team up with Strathclyde Police and the Community Health Partnership to deliver the ambitious initiative.
John Arthur, head of the council's safer communities set-up, said: "The Scottish Government awarded Inverclyde Council and its partners £50,000 to establish a Violence Reduction JAG as a violence and learning test site.
"This request was on the back of the successful No Knives Better Lives campaign that Inverclyde hosted during the summer of 2009.
"The JAG will have a life of one year and its role is to scope and analyse service provision that impacts primarily on children, families and young people."
Once the team has analysed the violent crime which scars our streets and the services currently in place to deal with it, the group will be asked to find ways to improve the situation.
Councillors will be given a full briefing about the initiative at a meeting tomorrow.
In a report to the council's Safe Sustainable Communities Committee, Mr Arthur tells councillors the partners involved in the new scheme 'see the potential worth of the project in making Inverclyde a better place'.
This article appeared in Greenock Telegraph 08 Mar 10
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