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ment and reducing opportunities for committing crime through city planning and the use of technology.42 It is less the potential offender than the potential victim that must be helped, in order to crack down on the conditions for committing crime (anti-intrusion systems, increased surveillance, particularly by residents, etc.). Neighbourhood watch schemes have been the main element of these programmes. At almost the same time in France, a report on security involving mayors made its mark on prevention strategies. Until then, prevention was a matter for the State and local associations. Pressure by local elected officials played a part in a context of decentralisation and the arrival of the left in power. The aim of the report was to establish a new security policy based on the links, unheard of at that time, between prevention, repression and strong social policy, by targeting a population and their local area in order to improve their lives. It was no longer about targeting specific groups such as youth gangs in previous decades - but from now on, programmes based on zoning. The strategy was also innovative in terms of control, by placing the mayor at the centre of partnership units, including State services and the voluntary sector. Theoretically it was also about linking these programmes to law enforcement work, which had hardly ever been done up until then, or only on a very small scale. Over the next decade, these programmes were to be sustained by the Ministry of Urban Affairs and the number of targeted areas - unlike available resources – increased almost constantly. In 2000, 250 city contracts affected about six million people. Whatever the political leanings of the government, social solidarity has never ceased, even if human action gradually 42- Crawford A., 2001, Les politiques de sécurité locale et de prévention de la délinquance en Angleterre et au Pays de Galles : nouvelles stratégies et nouveaux développements, in Duprez D., Hebberecht P., Dir., 2001, Les politiques de sécurité et de prévention en Europe, Déviance & Société, 25, 4, numéro spécial, 427-458.
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