Christianity in Public Life
11th March 2009
During a debate on Christianity in Public Life, David Burrowes commends the work of the street pastors initiative and the work they do in reducing crime rates.
Mr. David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con): I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing such an important debate. On the subject of street pastors, he might be aware that yesterday there was a reception for co-ordinators from the initiative. There were 90 representatives of areas from Aberdeen to the Isle of Wight, Chelmsford to Bristol, and all the areas in between. Street pastors is a growing initiative that practises what most people only preach. It shows compassion in action by reaching out to the community, and it produces wonderful results in reducing and helping to drive down crime rates.
Andrew Selous: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. I want to move on to exactly that point now. That initiative sounds excellent and I hope that street pastors help the police, but what are the results? We now have results from across the country on the operation of street pastors. I understand that within the first 13 weeks of the operation of street pastors in Lewisham, there was a 30 per cent. reduction in street crime. There was a 95 per cent. reduction in street crime in Camberwell—I am not quite sure if something of extra significance happened there that did not happen elsewhere—and a 74 per cent. reduction in Peckham. In Lincoln, during the first six months of the operation of street pastors, there was a 7.5 per cent. reduction in street crime, and in Cardiff, on Fridays when the street pastors operated there was a 13 per cent. fall in violent crime related to drunkenness.
