Home Office Circular 8/84 focused on the need for coordination between the police and other agencies. In addition, papers from the Home Office Research and Planning Unit have emphasized the need for each agency to be aware of the relationships among its activities and those of other agencies. However, clarity is often lacking regarding the contributions that agencies other than the police are to make toward crime prevention. Current efforts at interagency cooperation in a Lancashire town and in London show that areas of conflict and consensus exist in interagency work. In addition, official pronouncements often differ significantly from actual practice. Different agencies have different emphases, and interagency meetings sometimes emphasize surface agreement rather than substantive discussions and a clear sense of direction. Thus, the enthusiasm for interagency cooperation in crime prevention often remains at the level of rhetoric, so that its importance may be symbolic rather than reflecting what is feasible. Notes and 49 references.