ABSTRACT
Over the last two decades, the criminal justice system has seen a dramatic expansion in multi-agency practice. Since the mid-1980s, the advantages of a partnership approach to crime prevention have been espoused not only by policy-makers but also by practitioners: indeed local developments initiated by agencies and practitioners over the last twenty years have been highly influential in shaping subsequent policy. 1 The emerging consensus about the benefits of multi-agency practice culminated in the Crime and Disorder Act in 1998, which made partnership work in crime prevention a statutory duty in England and Wales. The Act required local authorities, police forces, probation committees and health authorities to work together to address crime and disorder, and to consult community groups and the voluntary sector. For the first time, therefore, multi-agency work became a part of normal practice and policy — something that had been advocated by the influential Morgan Report nearly a decade earlier (Home Office 1991).
