Hackney: Turkish Speaking and Kurdish Police Surgery

This is an example of building the confidence of traditionally hard to reach members of the community to tackle and report crime.

Brief description of the project

There is large Turkish Speaking and Kurdish community living, working or socialising in Hackney.  The Police and Safer Communities Partnership were concerned that crimes committed against members of these communities, as well as within them, were underreported. 

As a result of this, a number of meetings were held with Halkevi, which is the largest community centre in Hackney in terms of the number of members.

These meetings came to the conclusion that members of these communities are finding it hard to report crime because:

• These communities’ experiences of policing in Turkey 
• Their experiences of going to the police station in the UK
• Cultural issues and language barriers

As a result, it was decided to set up a Turkish Speaking and Kurdish Police Surgery at Halkevi as a partnership initiative of LB Hackney Safer Communities Services, Hackney Borough Police, Metropolitan Police Authority and Halkevi.

The surgery is staffed by a Turkish speaking Police Officer (or a Turkish speaking PCSO in his absence) and a Kurdish interpreter.

All types of crime can be reported in these surgeries. Members of the public can ask for general crime prevention advice or make a comment about policing in the borough.   The surgery is held fortnightly Saturday afternoons.

Issues or situation the initiative or project sought to tackle

• Anti-social behaviour  (young people)
• Anti-social behaviour (alcohol induced crime)
• Violence against a person
• Gun crime
• Domestic violence
• Hate Crime
• Prolific Offenders
• Unreported crime / fear of crime

Groups this initiative actively engaged

• Victims of crime
• Women 
• BMER communities (Turkish speaking, Kurdish and Turkish Cypriot)

How the initiative was funded

CST contribution is through NRF

Borough’s own rating on the level of engagement: 5
(on a level of 1-5, with 1 being low and 5 being high)

Other relevant information

Electronic copy of the poster for the surgery is available from the borough.

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