IN HER answering-machine message, Marilyn Garber’s soft, girly voice makes her sound about 13. In person, not quite 5ft and around a size 6, the 29-year-old doesn’t look much older. When she speaks, you have to get really close to hear what she’s saying.

We’re in deepest Hackney, East London, minutes from the area’s notorious “murder mile”, at pub chucking-out time on a Saturday night. Unlikely as it might seem, Garber is about to take to the streets of the country’s fifth most deprived borough with a team of devout Christians in baseball caps to fight local crime.

What’s more surprising is that, according to police statistics, success is on their side. If you live in an urban area and haven’t already come across the “Street Pastors”, chances are that you soon will.

The Street Pastors, a voluntary independent inter-denominational Christian organisation, was launched in April 2003 by the Rev Les Isaac. His aim was to patrol the streets and connect with the community, particularly with young people who feel excluded — kids in hoodies, kids with kids, kids from broken homes, with guns and knives, with ASBOs, kids who sell drugs — and change things by reaching the root of recurrent social problems. More than two years later, the initiative has spread to Birmingham, Manchester and Leicester — with units on the way in Leeds, Wrexham, Bromley, Sutton, Merton, Portsmouth and Northampton.

So far, there are 300 Street Pastors nationwide, with team sizes ranging from around 12-strong, in Brent, up to 23 in Lambeth. In the inner cities of London, Birmingham and Manchester, they will often tackle typically urban problems such as gangs, guns, drugs and knives. Over in Leicester, where these are less of an issue, clubs and pubs have welcomed the Pastors, incorporating their details into projections and leaflets so that young people know that the Pastors are out there when they leave.

“So often we see young single women out alone late at night,” says Eustace Constance, Street Pastors’ head office co-ordinator. “A common request is ‘Would you just walk me home?’ ” In Southend, the focus is more on weekend drinkers and boy racers hanging around along the seafront. “Wherever you have crowds and alcohol,” Constance continues, “you have the potential for violence. The Southend Pastors are very proactive.”

What seems to be common to each of the operations is the focus on young people. Mike Royal is a church minister and the co-ordinator for Birmingham’s initiative, which serves the Handsworth, Lozells and Aston areas: “There is a lot of youth that is not engaging, listening or connecting,” he says. He recounts the story of a 14-year-old pregnant girl who had been on a police missing persons list for several weeks. “There are places a Pastor can go that the police can ’t,” he says. “Their presence can create tension, people can feel nervous and think they’re after them. But we can mix and mingle in these places, we get to know all the faces.” The Pastors found the missing teenager in one such establishment, and got her into a safe-house.

“People might think, ‘Oh, they’re from the church, happy clappy, they have just come along to Bible-bash,” says Isaac, a jovial Pentecostal minister, “but we’re not concerned with preaching to people. Our approach is: care, listen, help.”

Even in the corners of some of the UK’s scariest estates, Street Pastors have gained the unlikeliest of support. “Drug dealers have come up to me on duty and said, ‘Reverend, keep up the good work, you’re doing a good job’.”

Comparisons with the Guardian Angels and recent Street Warden initiatives are hard to avoid, but Isaac says that they are different: “We are not vigilantes. We don’t have the power to fine people.” Instead, the emphasis, he explains, is on the practical: a holistic approach to problems in troubled inner-city areas. This is made possible by what Isaac calls the “urban trinity” — a unique relationship that he has helped to create between the Church, the police and local authorities.

Not that the relationship came easily to the Street Pastors. Despite letters to police chiefs and council executives before they were launched, there was little interest initially. Until Isaac persevered and asked police to compile statistics focused on the nights when one of his teams was out on the street (shifts typically run from 10pm to 4am, Fridays and Saturdays). The results were dramatic.

In Southwark, South London, a nine-month police evaluation recorded up to a 95 per cent reduction in calls relating to public disorder whenever the Pastors were deployed.

“We’re very impressed with their work,” says Inspector Simon Smith, of Southwark Police. “I think their secret is their ability to communicate to the community. They’re able to engage and divert people and — because they are independent — there are none of the barriers that people might associate with the police or social services. I admire what they do; I wouldn’t go out there with no protection.”