Disorder, muggings, violent assaults - the offences dominating the latest crime figures are all too common in the inner city borough of Islington, north London.
Stretching from derelict parts of King's Cross, through the riches of Barnsbury, up to poverty-hit areas of Holloway and Archway, the borough has marked social divisions and a traditionally high crime rate.
The recent mugging of the prime minister's sister, Sarah Blair, made the area a national example of the increasing problems faced by inner city forces.
As the rate of violent offences rises, Islington is hailing the biggest fall in street crime in the city over the past three months - a drop of 11.6%.
The secret, they say, is teamwork.
Behaviour contracts
Bridget Fox, deputy leader of Islington Council, is chair of the partnership committee formed in 1999 amid concern about the level of assaults.
She says the success of co-operation between the council, the police, the probation service and the health authority in setting common targets has had a marked effect.
"The first task is to recognise crime as a problem, " she said.
"Running public services is about responding to what people need. Our partnership has helped us target resources."
Already copied by other forces, it is an agreement of good behaviour signed by a troublesome youth, their parents and the police.
It creates a forum for discussion, while underlining the consequences of further anti-social behaviour.
Families can be cautioned and eventually evicted on the basis of the conduct of their children, although the power has yet to be fully used.
Ms Fox believes that unlike the government's much-heralded Anti-Social Behaviour Order, the contract "gives a sense of control" to the young person.
In an area with as much high-density housing as Islington, tackling the minority of offenders quickly has been crucial.
New tactics
Islington Police is also quick to recognise the role of teamwork in the reduction of crime figures across the board.
But it is a combination of new and old preventative tactics that it says has helped it target the worst areas and offenders.
Improved intelligence-gathering, overt video-taping, dog patrols and more precise crime analysis have all been employed.
One recent initiative in King's Cross, which saw a highly-trained surveillance team drafted into the area for nine weeks, cut street crime in half.
Graham Ferguson, a spokesman for the force, said it was targeted policing and fresh, responsive tactics that were responsible for the drop, despite the force being under-strength.
As an example of the way that the police and local authorities had been working hand-in-hand, he said that better street-lighting installed by the council near cashpoints identified as a crime hotspot had dramatically cut robberies near the machines.
He believes the general fall in crime has had a knock-on effect on the level of serious assault, an area where the public have some of their biggest concerns.
"People have pulled together and done the job," he said.
Public fears
Even out on the streets of the borough, people feel relatively safe, though petty crime is seen as a big problem.
Charlotte Boris, who lives near Caledonian Road, an area known for high crime, said she was most scared of the children, some as young as eight, that hang around near her home. Police foot patrols are rarely seen.
"There's not much you can do, but they should talk to the kids in school," she said.
Paul Elton, a manager at Highbury Pool, calls the area just outside a "crime hotspot".
"The biggest crime around here is the bikes. They go missing all the time and it's getting much worse," he said.
He suggests more police cameras would help tackle the problem.
"The police use them to watch the traffic, why not use them here if they know it's a hotspot."
The borough's crime partnership says it is listening to such concerns and has more schemes in the pipeline - such as a communication system that will let residents know quickly when a crime has happened near their home.
And with more government resources on the way, Islington has high hopes that its residents' fear of crime, a notoriously difficult perception to improve, will begin to fall with the figures.