British town Preston scoops EU crime prevention prize
(PARIS) - The British city of Preston won a European crime prevention prize Tuesday for reducing street crime in a rough area by cleaning up the streets, improving lighting and installing video cameras.
Former French president Valery Giscard d'Estaing gave the 20,000-euro award from the European Crime Prevention Network to the mayor of the northwestern city at a ceremony in Paris at the end of a two-day conference by the network. Czeladz in southern Poland took second place among the 11 towns vying for the prize, whose criteria state that the crime reduction techniques used must be transferable to other towns.
The European Crime Prevention Network was set up in 2001 to "promote crime prevention activity in member states across the EU, and to provide a means through which valuable good practice in preventing crime ... could be shared," according to its website.
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