The prevention of crime has always been a core function for An Garda Síochána. As an organisation, it has a long established tradition of crime prevention and community policing. An Garda Síochána has a statutory obligation under section 7 of the Garda Síochána Act 2005 to prevent crime. The impact of a crime on victims and their families can go from nuisance to devastation depending on the crime. Through proactive policing, crime can be prevented in the first instance and thus fear of crime is reduced.

An Garda Síochána recognises that, in order to effectively combat crime and the fear of crime, comprehensive crime prevention and reduction strategies must be put in place. To this end, An Garda Síochána has developed, promoted and implemented various crime prevention and reduction strategies such as Neighbourhood Watch, Community Alert, Text Alert, Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED) and target-specific strategies. However, criminals are very adaptable and so these strategies must be constantly reviewed, assessed, tweaked and/or replaced as necessary and new strategies developed, if we are to keep ahead of the criminal.

Community engagement is integral to our crime prevention efforts. Crime prevention will be effective through partnership and collaboration with community and State agency stakeholders and successful strategies must include elements and groups within society other than the Gardaí. All elements of society, State agencies, local authorities, health boards, schools etc. and all elements of the community right down to the individual citizen must play their part to prevent crime.

This overarching Garda Crime Prevention and Reduction Strategy is developed to provide guidance and assistance for An Garda Síochána to effectively utilise its resources to prevent and reduce crime. It will be the framework for developing particular and individual strategies to tackle specific crime problems affecting the community.

From An Garda Síochána’s perspective it will encourage, embed and develop a mindset of crime prevention amongst all management and staff. All Gardaí will benefit from these initiatives through education, training and access to resources which will ultimately develop a tradition within the organisation of encouraging crime prevention and reduction. For the wider community, it will be effective in promoting and capitalising on the positive benefits of crime prevention for all, by making our communities safer places in which to live and work.