A closer link between community agencies will go a long way to help Bermuda in crime prevention.

Visiting UK Home Office adviser Chris Browne, who was to produce an internal draft report for Police on national crime prevention before she left the Island on Saturday, told The Royal Gazette last week that she has found during her brief stay many attempts of tackling the issue exist.

"My impression is that there is a lot going on, but each group does not necessarily know what the others are doing,'' she said. "There is also no monitoring of drug prevention programmes.

"I'll be looking for more objectives and a more structured system of these groups working together. Most of them are very keen to do this.'' Noting that she still needed to analyse her research from the last ten days, Ms Browne said she was optimistic Bermuda will come to grips with crime prevention in the long term.

She explained that she approached her review from the perspective that crime prevention was not just the responsibility of Police.

"The report, which will be fairly brief, will cover what I think of as key issues for the Police Service in crime prevention,'' she said. "A lot of those issues will flag other agencies.'' In an attempt to get a clear picture of what crime prevention measures were in place or planned throughout the Island, Ms Browne met some 80 individuals and groups, including the Mayor and Secretary of the Corporation of Hamilton, CedarBridge Academy principal Ernest Payette, the Chamber of Commerce, the west, central and east Police/Community Consultative groups, officials from Probation Services, the Prisons Service, various departments within the Police Service, the Council on Alcohol and Drug Abuse, and the National Drug Commission.

"Obviously many crimes are drug related, therefore I wanted to speak with such groups.

"The community is concerned about drugs across the board,'' she added. "But also there is a lot of goodwill to address this.'' Ms Browne -- who visited the Island in December, 1995 to learn about Bermuda's partnerships against drugs and last November to present her study -- plans to make several recommendations on how the community can work together more closely in her internal report for Police.

However she said her report will only touch the surface of crime prevention.

"I've been impressed with the way the new district consultative groups are working together,'' she added when asked about her findings. "I've heard about such a range of crime prevention methods that are working.'' She cited the cooperation between Police and the Corporation of Hamilton to set up a closed circuit television system in the city.

Noting the best place to start in crime prevention was with young people, she also pointed out that there were several programmes with and without Police involvement which were set up to help, including mentoring schemes.

And she said Government and the corporate sector can help community groups in their efforts.

"Sometimes it is very difficult to harness people's energy,'' she noted.

"They need to have some sort of support from somewhere.'' Chris Browne CRIME CRM