The Crime Prevention Unit (CP Unit) of the Ministry of Justice and Law Enforcement of Hungary has just received the applications for its call for proposals in 2009. Unlike the previous years’ practice, when it supported direct local crime prevention programmes, this year the CP Unit has published a call for projects aiming at the dissemination of the results and the adaptation of the methods of crime prevention projects carried out in the last few years in the field of developing urban safety and the reduction of fear of crime. This change was motivated by the fact that though several crime prevention projects have been delivered since 2004 which proved to be successful and effective, the lack of information and methodological guidance delayed other organisations to use the approach of these projects to address local problems of the same kind.

The dissemination and the adaptation of the results and methods of the previous years’ projects is supposed to be realized through

• elaboration of methodologies and protocols,
• organizing trainings and seminars,
• producing films and publications,
• developing and enhancing cooperation between organisations.

Organisations, such as government services, police, institutions, local governments and NGOs, whose crime prevention projects were awarded by the National Crime Prevention Board and ministerial organs dealing with different fields of crime prevention between 2004 and 2008, were invited to apply for the call.

The Crime Prevention Unit has received 59 applications for grants from a budget of 145 000 € (40 000 000 HUF). The decision on the award of the grants is planned to take place in December. The projects provided with grants shall be delivered between 15 January 2010 and 30 April 2010. By producing methodological guides and know-how descriptions ready to be translated in different languages, the delivery of the projects should as well increase the adaptability of good practices by practitioners of other EU Member States.