Crime and Violence Prevention in an Urban Indigenous Community

This paper considers the delicate issue of high crime rates in a disadvantaged population, and explores the appropriateness of existing crime and violence prevention strategies. The paper reports on a collaborative research project carried out in a small Australian city in 2002-2003 by the local police service, Indigenous community members and a university. The project gathered information about the extent and nature of crime in the local Indigenous community, existing crime prevention initiatives and Indigenous community members'perceptions of these initiatives. The key points emerging from this project were: the persistence of social divides separating Indigenous populations and non-Indigenous institutions such as the police service; the impact of these divides on the effectiveness of crime prevention activities; and the importance of face-to-face relationship-building in overcoming these social divides and improving the effectiveness of crime and violence prevention.