Strengthening our communities can offer a more secure future

• Address the social causes of crime
• Create partnerships between different levels of government, the local police and communities; and
• Demonstrate a high level of policy innovation.

Let me provide some examples of what this might mean in practice. A community organisation might find a new way of working with young people to break down gangs and gang violence.

Or a family-support service might work with the police to establish early intervention strategies for domestic violence, reducing the number of repeat offenders. Or a church group might develop community programs in a new housing estate, overcoming the problems of isolation and vulnerability to crime.

I also want the business community to be involved in this program. Chambers of commerce, for instance, will receive funding to implement CBD crime prevention strategies - tackling problems such as drugs, street-crime and late-night violence.

Law and order issues are not spread evenly across our towns and suburbs. They are concentrated geographically. Labor's Community Safety Zones recognise this problem. They are a well-targeted response to the social and community causes of crime.

We also need to rethink the question of urban design. The way in which we plan and construct our cities has a huge impact on the rate and location of crime. This is Labor's second initiative: the creation of Safe Cities.

In recent decades, most Australian suburbs have been designed to maximise privacy and minimise car and pedestrian movements. Unfortunately, privacy for the resident is also privacy for the burglar. High fences, quiet streets and isolated areas assist the criminals as they do their worst.

Turning inwards actually increases the crime problem. We need to design our suburbs as communities, rather than enclaves. In some parts of Australia, the real estate market is already moving in this direction, with a return to village-type principles.

In particular, I recommend to you the Safe City project undertaken by Gosnells Council in the southern districts of Perth. This is one of the best empirical research studies I have seen, matching different types of urban form against the incidence of crime.

It has the potential to transform the law and order debate in Australia, shifting the focus from punishment to the quality of urban design. Consider the following conclusions:

• Neighbourhoods with visibility, activity and community life on the streets are likely to have a 40 percent lower rate of crime.
• Streets that are within walking distance of major public facilities - that is, they have a lot of pedestrian activity - have significantly less crime.
• Homes that back onto parks and other isolated places are 37 percent more likely to be broken into.
• Homes at the end of a cul-de-sac are more likely to be burgled than those at the entrance, where car and pedestrian movements are maximised.

At one level, these findings are just commonsense. Pedestrians provide a natural form of surveillance for our homes, discouraging wrong-doers. The best way of minimising street-crime is to maximise visibility and community.