Safety Plan 2023-2026

Safety is a basic requirement for an attractive and livable Gemert-Bakel. Gemert-Bakel should not only be safe, people should also feel safe, welcome and free. We create a safe Gemert-Bakel together. Through joint efforts and integrated cooperation, together we ensure a liveable and safe Gemert-Bakel, where nuisance and crime are prevented as much as possible.
The municipality directs and works together with its safety partners to ensure and improve safety situations within Gemert-Bakel.
Every four years the municipality draws up a safety plan to ensure proper management and coordination in the complex area of safety. Besides being a legal requirement under the Police Act, it is necessary to reassess the course of action every four years in a changing world. This is because new developments in society require new considerations, shifts in priorities and different ways of working.
The Security Plan is a strategic policy document that the municipality uses to guide local security policy.
The Security Plan defines priorities, establishes ambitions and starting points, provides a basis for local and supra-local cooperation and offers starting points for monitoring, adjustment and accountability. It also outlines what efforts and actions are already being undertaken and are needed to achieve our ambitions.

Municipal security policy previously consisted of two main components, social and physical security. However, due to the digitization of society, new security issues have been added, namely about digital security.

These developments call for an expansion of our approach. Therefore, the municipal security policy has been broadened to include a third main component: digital security.

Social security

Social safety refers to the extent to which people are protected, or feel protected, from danger caused or threatened by human action. In short, social safety is about supporting "safe living together. As a municipality, we support safe living together in Gemert-Bakel by, among other things, focusing on the connection between safety and care, but also on preventing and tackling nuisance, crime and domestic violence. We also focus on promoting social cohesion and livability. Social cohesion and livability contribute to a safe living environment.

Physical security

Physical safety is the degree to which people are protected or feel protected from accidents or suffering, of non-human origin. This includes fire safety, traffic safety, event safety, external safety, environmental safety, disaster response and crisis management.

Digital security

Digital security includes all measures aimed at preventing damage caused by disruption, failure or misuse of digital processes or services and, if damage does occur, repairing it.
The municipality has an important role in preventing residents, businesses, facilities and the municipality itself from becoming victims of cyber-related issues.

To make and keep Gemert-Bakel resilient, we as a municipality focus on the following three points:

1. Own house in order: internal information security in order (preventive);
2. Digital crime: making residents and business owners aware and resilient (preventive);
3. Cyber incidents and cyber crisis: cyber consequences mitigation and management (repressive).

Thus, the approach against digital crime has two aspects: incident prevention and incident response.

To ensure a livable and safe Gemert-Bakel, we work intensively with our safety partners:

• East Brabant Police Unit;
• Prosecutor's Office;
• Brabant-Zuidoost Safety Region;
• Brabant-Zuidoost Environmental Service;
• Regional Information and Expertise Center (RIEC);
• Care and Safety House Brabant-Zuidoost.

Peelland

However, the topic of security does not stop at the municipal borders. Therefore, the six Peel municipalities, Police and Public Prosecutor have adopted the Peelland Safety Plan 2023-2026. This plan describes priorities for which - at local and/or regional level - a plan of action has been established:

1. Undermining crime;
2. Digitized crime and cybercrime;
3. Social unrest, radicalization and polarization;
4. Persons with misunderstood behavior;
5. Domestic violence and child abuse.

East Brabant

Also at the East Brabant level, Gemert-Bakel cooperates with the 31 municipalities in East Brabant, Police and Public Prosecutor's Office. The East Brabant Regional Safety Plan 2023-2026 forms the basis for this cooperation. The Regional Safety Plan East-Brabant 2023-2026 describes five priorities, which require a (supra)regional approach:

1. Care and Safety;
2. Digital Security;
3. Social Unrest;
4. Subversion;
5. Human trafficking.

In order to direct local security policy and maintain public order and safety, a good information position is important. Both quantitatively from figures and qualitatively from signals from partners and neighborhoods.
We work largely information-driven and use internal and external data to act less reactively and on the basis of incidents and more on the basis of overviews, trends and developments. In this way we want to get to the front of the problem. In the coming years, we want to work even more efficiently and effectively by further utilizing, analyzing and combining information.
By working information-driven, we can:

• Identify problems early;
• Focused engagement with partners;
• Targeted measures;
• Make informed choices regarding prioritization and interventions;
• Deploy capacity effectively.

For an effective security policy, it is important to undertake an appropriate and complete package of preventive and repressive measures.
There should be a logical structure and coherence in the combination of those measures. As a municipality of Gemert-Bakel, we want to prevent as much crime and nuisance as possible. Therefore, preventive measures are of great value to us. Where necessary, we deploy our repressive measures. We do this to end an unsafe situation and limit the damage as much as possible. Here, in cooperation with partners, we use both administrative and criminal law.

Person-centered approach

Where possible, the municipality of Gemert-Bakel focuses on a person-centered approach (PGA). Also in Gemert-Bakel we know persons who cause serious safety problems and/or serious nuisance. Some persons persist in this behavior or 'grow on', often in combination with behavioral and psychological problems, addiction, etc. At PGA, the individual is central and the municipality, Police, Prosecutor's Office and social services work closely together to prevent the same persons from continuing to cause problems and receiving the appropriate help.
An integral personalized (mix of) intervention(s) is a successful way to support and possibly address these vulnerable people together with chain partners. The social domain has an important role here. Indeed, the solutions to many public order and security issues are in the collaboration with the social domain.

Neighborhood-oriented approach

Another way to deliver customized solutions to a complex problem is through neighborhood management. District management, also called district-oriented work, is an integral approach that focuses on improving the immediate living environment in a particular district or neighborhood in cooperation with residents and chain partners. Gemert-Bakel has villages and neighborhoods, each with its own opportunities and challenges. A tailored approach does justice to the differences between districts, neighborhoods and to the differences in concerns and problems experienced by Gemert-Bakel society.

Developments move quickly and cannot always be foreseen. Therefore, the five priorities/focus areas are not set in stone. Sometimes unforeseen developments can cause them to shift. The COVID-19 pandemic is a clear example of this. It is important for Gemert-Bakel to be flexible enough to respond to current security issues. This Safety Plan therefore identifies five priorities / focus areas, rather than rigid frameworks. This leaves enough room to move with current developments and respond to needs in an area.

Concrete projects and actions resulting from the priorities / areas of interest are reported through the regular Planning & Control Cycle. In addition, developments, figures and results regarding (integral) safety are discussed with the city council annually through the Safety Implementation Program.

This Safety Plan describes our ambitions and priorities for the coming years. We have summarized this in five safety themes.
These priorities arise from our safety situations in which we look at the problems, the approach, developments and the future. In addition, they have come about through the Safety Monitor 2021, the Coalition Agreement 2022-2026 Gemert-Bakel; Samen Goed Doen (Doing it well together) and through cooperation with internal and external partners. These safety themes require extra attention in terms of effort and capacity. However, this does not mean that there is no attention for other safety themes.
Setting priorities is necessary because there are always more issues than available capacity. This forces us to make sharp choices. The world around us is changing rapidly with changing and new challenges. These circumstances can cause priorities and work to shift. Flexibility is then important to be able to act efficiently and decisively.

Gemert-Bakel wants residents to be able to live comfortably in their villages. To this end, it is important that the quality of life in the villages is maintained and, where possible, improved.

We do this by investing in the physical quality of the living environment, but also by countering various forms of nuisance in our villages and neighborhoods. Countering nuisances has become an increasingly important task for the municipality in recent years. On the one hand, this has to do with the fact that the Police have of necessity become less involved in dealing with light forms of nuisance and have begun to focus proportionately more on more serious forms of crime. On the other hand, nuisance rates, both in Gemert-Bakel and in the rest of the Netherlands, have also gradually increased over the past decade (Central Bureau of Statistics, 2021). Due to these developments, not only the boas and other involved teams of the municipality have been given an increasing role in the field of livability, but also other chain partners such as the housing corporation, welfare work (neighborhood mediation) and social work. In the coming years, tackling various forms of nuisance that put pressure on the livability of the villages and neighborhoods will remain a high priority.

Ambition

Reducing residential nuisance and enhancing livability by focusing on prevention, care and repression.

What are we going to do?

• Undermining crime, health and safety issues and youth nuisance affect safety and livability. Therefore, we address these issues as described below;
• For drug nuisances, we map the locations, then work with our security partners to deploy specific prevention and repression tools.
• For serious forms of residential nuisance, if lighter interventions have not worked, a specific behavioral instruction may be imposed on the tenant and/or landlord of the dwelling as an ultimum remedium under the Housing Nuisance Approach Act, and;
• When owner-occupied housing is involved, the instruments are specifically tailored to it;
• Our explicit focus in residential nuisance cases is on the safety and livability of the victims of residential nuisance, the local residents;
• Our boas continue to enforce the small standard by acting as "eyes and ears" in the neighborhoods and taking enforcement action when necessary;
• Livability in neighborhoods is further provided, by intensifying cooperation between Police and boas;
• In the case of youth nuisance and youth crime, we will identify and monitor (vulnerable) youth through early signaling. By deploying appropriate instruments, we want to prevent the further slide of young people;
• By working neighborhood-oriented and close to our residents, we can respond quickly to safety and livability issues.

Highlighted text: ''Nuisance-creators are too often seen as victims and not as perpetrators. As a result, it is often lost sight of the fact that residents of nuisance-causers can also be victims and often need help as well.''

Mayor Michiel van Veen,
Eindhovens Dagblad, December 2021

In Gemert-Bakel we want everyone to be able to participate in our society. We assume the own strength of residents, but there is also a group of residents who cannot manage on their own and therefore the municipality offers them appropriate support.

This is also very important from a security perspective. This group often involves vulnerable people who may pose a risk to themselves, the environment and public order and safety. These issues can make people more vulnerable to becoming victims of abuse or falling into (undermining) crime. Sustainably improving care for vulnerable people and their environment and addressing associated safety issues requires intensive collaboration between health professionals and safety partners.
Examples of themes at the intersection of care and safety:

• Persons with confused behavior;
• Polarization and radicalization;
• Xenophobia;
• Violence and sex offenses;
• Domestic violence and child abuse.

Ambitions

1. Empowering collaboration between health and safety professionals. This includes, strengthening:
   • Early detection and prevention;
   • Information sharing between partners;
   • Providing tools for professionals to work well together and scale up and down in a timely manner.
2. To further counter safety problems caused by vulnerable persons or persons with confused behavior, by realizing a comprehensive approach in the field of care and safety.

How are we going to do that?

Organization:

we want to perpetuate the domains of care and security by working together even more intensively on concrete care and security issues. Many steps have already been taken, but we want to expand this synergy of care and safety even further in the coming years. Partly for this reason, there is an Incident Consultation where we determine the joint work agenda together with the Police and other cooperation partners such as the housing corporation and Senzer.

Customization:

We remain committed to the person-centered approach to vulnerable persons in need of support, such as victims of human trafficking or persons with confused behavior. Here we work with the relevant partners, such as the Police, care and assistance agencies and the housing association, on a case-by-case basis. With the help of an integral personalized (mix of) intervention(s), we try to prevent (vulnerable) people from exhibiting nuisance or criminal behavior. This mainly concerns a small group of people who cause a lot of nuisance and often have multiple and complex problems, such as: psychiatric complaints, addiction and a mental disability. In addition, there are often problems in other areas of life, such as debts and housing problems. For these individuals, the generic offer of interventions does not work, or does not work sufficiently, which means that in these types of situations it is necessary to step off the beaten path to reach a solution. This requires good cooperation between chain partners, where a common goal is essential. No matter how complex and complicated the casuistry is, there should be a joint look at what is needed and then make agreements about what can be done and who does what.

This may also mean that organizations should be open to providing care and attention to individuals who may not (just) fit their target group or focus. To realize this, strong direction by the municipality is needed. Gemert-Bakel aspires to create a comprehensive approach to these cases by working more closely with chain partners. Both the social and security domains have an important role in this. After all, the solutions to many problems in the field of public order and security lie in the collaboration with the social domain.

What else are we doing?

• We strengthen the approach to themes at the intersection of care and safety by connecting to regional developments and initiatives of cooperation partners, such as the Care and Safety House Brabant-Zuidoost;
• We know what is going on in society, because we periodically enter into discussions with representatives of various communities in Gemert-Bakel. This allows us to pick up concerns and signals from networks and pick them up with chain partners. This concerns, for example, signals of polarization and radicalization, but also other signals are picked up, such as those of domestic violence. All signals are seriously analyzed and where possible interventions take place;
• We continue the Aanpak Voorkoming Escalatie (AVE) methodology as a working method in Gemert-Bakel so that internal and external partners use the same working method in terms of scaling up and scaling down escalating social problems;
• We actively use the Compulsory Mental Health Care Act (Wvggz) if a case calls for it.

Higlighte text: ''When you yourself feel you have nowhere to turn, it feels like a great relief when others stand up for your interests.''

Victim of domestic violence, February 2022

Society is digitizing. Increasingly, residents, entrepreneurs and public institutions arrange their affairs and services online. The online world offers many possibilities and opportunities, but there are also security risks such as the rise of digital crime.

Digital crime consists of cybercrime (crime using ICT as a tool and target) and digitized crime (ICT is used to commit "traditional" forms of crime such as threat, theft or fraud). The impact of digital crime on victims can be significant. Not only in the sense of material damage and/or loss of property, but it also damages victims' trust in acquaintances, companies and (government) institutions whose names are misused in fraud, for example. Many residents and businesses are unable to keep up with rapid technological and digital developments and are therefore increasingly susceptible to crime.

What are we going to do?

• Understanding which forms of digital crime occur in Gemert-Bakel, who our vulnerable residents are and where we as a municipality can respond with education and awareness;
• Inform and educate vulnerable target groups about security risks that may accompany digitization (e.g., risks of sexting). This is done in part through awareness campaigns. We will explore what role partners can play in this regard;
• Encourage victims to report to the Police and thereby strengthen the detection of perpetrators;
• Follow national and regional developments and actions and where of added value deploy them in Gemert-Bakel. Cooperation is very important here. After all, digital crime is cross-border;
• From the crisis organization, training on crises involving cybercrime, such as a cyberattack, is more frequent.

Highlighted text: ''I just fell in with two feet; lost 25,000 euros in savings.''

Victim of digital scam, Eindhovens Dagblad, July 2020

Undermining crime is a theme that in recent years has occupied an increasingly important role on the national, regional and local agenda. Despite the fact that organized crime has been dealt considerable blows by organized government in recent years, tackling undermining crime requires our undiminished attention.

Undermining crime involves the mixing of the underworld and the upper world, as perpetrators of (organized) crime use the same legal services and facilities as ordinary residents for illegal activities, such as transportation facilities, financial and legal services, the real estate sector, etc. Undermining crime is deeply rooted in (local) society. The combination of extensive criminal assets and access to heavy force enables criminals to influence society and the rule of law. Thus they undermine the authority of the government and blur norms and values among bona fide parties.
As a result, it can affect security, livability, the economy and our democracy. Undermining crime has various manifestations. Examples include drug crime, fraud, money laundering, illegal room rentals and human trafficking. Although undermining crime is often not visible, it does have visible consequences.
Examples include drug dumps, excessive violence in public spaces and neglect of premises.

Ambitions

1. perpetuate the information position so that we have an up-to-date undermining picture;
2. Increasing resilience; administrative, official and residents and business owners;
3. Affirm local and regional integrated approaches;
4. Reduce organized crime using administrative, criminal and fiscal instruments.

What are we going to do?

• We continue to invest in creating awareness at various levels, both in the municipality and among residents, entrepreneurs and chain partners. Action perspectives are provided on how to recognize signals and where to report them. This is done through awareness campaigns, training and information meetings;
• We want to disrupt criminal partnerships and gain better insight into them by carrying out more targeted integrated checks in cooperation with our partners (including the Peelland Intervention Team (PIT), the Police, Tax Authority, the Public Prosecution Service and inspection services);
• We actively use various possibilities of laws and regulations (for example, Bibob Act, Opium Act and General Municipal Regulation) to combat undermining crime by taking administrative measures against criminals. These can include closing a drug premises and imposing a fine on a drug criminal;
• We ratify the cooperation with the RIEC Brabant-Zeeland and the Police by enriching undermining signals in a structured way with the information from each partner and making a joint plan for intervention through the undermining table;
• We perpetuate the information position by bringing together internal and external information, within the legal possibilities, for example by combining the information coming in through Report Crime Anonymously with information from surveillance and enforcement.

Updated text: Pilot Resilient Outlying Area: Gemert-Bakel, ZLTO and OM want to fight crime in outlying areas together.
''Our large outlying area can be an attractive place for criminals. By arming agricultural entrepreneurs at the front against wrong tenants, we can apply customization if things do go wrong. But more importantly: keep people with wrong intentions out.''

Mayor Michiel van Veen, Gemerts Nieuwsblad, December 2021

Our society increasingly faces crises and disasters. Think of wildfires or extreme weather conditions. These crises also affect our municipality.

Residents increasingly see major incidents occurring in the municipality, region or even the country, and then expect the government to adequately address these incidents. A coordinated approach is therefore often of great importance; cooperation with and between the various security services. Such as Police, Fire Department, GHOR (Joint Assistance in Accidents and Disasters), Security Region, but also the Public Prosecutor and Defense. In addition to this so-called repressive side, the preventive side plays an increasingly important role. In other words, the self-reliance of residents. How can I prepare myself for a crisis or disaster? What should I do at the time of a crisis or disaster?

Ambitions

1. Promote cooperation between the various security forces, both preventive and repressive;
2. Increasing residents' self-reliance.

How are we going to do that?

• Educate, train and exercise the municipal crisis organization. Both individually and in cooperation with the various security partners;
• Roll out campaigns that focus on informing residents, taking into account different target groups, and creating awareness about the risks of the immediate environment and how to act during a crisis. How to bring not only themselves to safety, but also people who cannot do it themselves.

Higlighte text: ''When COVID-19 was detected at a mink farm in Gemert-Bakel, our crisis organization was fully operational within one hour. This is crucial to avoid being behind the times.''

Disaster Management Officer, March 2020