Global Report on Human Settlements 2007 - PoA-ISS

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Urban crime and violence
From a planning and
public policy
standpoint, then,
where crimes occur
and how places are
designed and
managed are at least
as important as who
the perpetrators are
Crime and violence
are strongly
associated with the
growth and
proportion of youthful
populations and,
especially, young
males
Evidence also suggests that permeable street layouts
that encourage vehicular traffic flows across the urban fabric
tend to enhance certain crime opportunities since more
potential offenders will see more potential targets. This is
said by some to increase the cost of policing. 159 On the one
hand, access and escape routes for offenders are facilitated
by gridiron-based patterns, reducing the risk of being caught,
as well as facilitating the efforts to commit robberies and
burglaries. 160 On the other hand, permeable street patterns
knit cities together in the face of increasingly privatized
gated communities and tend to reduce dependence upon the
automobile, especially when urban mass transit is
utilized. 161 While the evidence is not conclusive and the
mechanisms are imperfectly understood, studies have linked
these elements with the routine movement, behaviour and
interactions of offenders and targets in cities. 162
From a planning and public policy standpoint, then,
where crimes occur and how places are designed and
managed are at least as important as who the perpetrators
are. This is so because crime and violence tends to reoccur
in relatively limited numbers of places in cities that provide
niches for offending. Moreover, these places are generally
known to citizens and police, and occurrences are therefore
reasonably predictable. Most other places are reasonably
safe. Chapter 4 identifies some of the approaches that cities
across the world have taken in integrating place-based crime
reduction strategies within existing or new planning and
public policy processes in attempting to grapple with these
challenges.
Demographics: Youthful population growth
A wealth of international data suggests that crime and
violence are strongly associated with the growth and
proportion of youthful populations and, especially, young
males. Cross-national research using data on 44 countries
from 1950 to 2000 reveals that ‘the percentage of young
people in the populations and prosperity are jointly more
important in explaining the variability of homicide’. 163 The
number of children under 16 years per area (child density)
has been noted as the single most important variable in
explaining vandalism in certain housing estates in the
UK. 164 In Nairobi (Kenya), where bank robbery, violent car
robbery, house breaking, and street muggings and snatching
are the main criminal activities, a distinctive attribute of the
perpetrators is their youthfulness – criminals in their teens
and 20s. 165
For people between the ages of 14 and 44 years old,
violence has been identified as a major cause of death, 166
and in some distressed communities it is the primary cause
of mortality of young people. This is a particularly salient
issue for young males. Chapter 1 noted, for example, that
violence was among the highest causes of death among
African–American males in the US; the homicide death rate
for African–American males aged 15 to 24 is 12 times the
rate for white males in the same age category and twice the
rate for Hispanic males. 167 The firearm-related death rate for
African–American males aged 15 to 19 is four times the rate
for white males in the same category. 168 Age and gender are
fundamental factors in determining vulnerability to small
arms violence, generally. These risk factors are particularly
significant when comparing firearms-related homicides
among nations as shown in Figure 3.20.
Across countries, Small Arms Survey and WHO data
report that males aged 15 to 29 account for about half of all
firearm-related homicides and, as Figure 3.20 indicates,
rates tends to be much higher for them than for the general
population in the top five selected nations. This trend is
consistent over time. The Small Arms Survey estimates the
total number of annual global deaths from gun-related
homicides for men aged 15 to 29 as falling between 70,000
and 100,000. 169
Other factors associated with youth crime
Youth crime and violence rates are associated with other
factors, such as level of policing, conviction and imprisonment
rates, drug cultures and a host of situational elements
that condition people, especially young men, to their
surrounding world. For example, the Small Arms Survey
concludes that youth demographics alone are insufficient in
explaining the variability of rates of violence among
nations. 170 It cited a US study suggesting that more and
better trained police, increased prison populations, the
ebbing crack epidemic and the effects of legalized abortions
have had more impact on crime rates than youthful populations.
171 For young males, local situational factors related to
masculine identity, achievement of status, prestige and social
and economic empowerment are important elements in
explaining the variability of violent crime rates around the
world. 172
■ Youth unemployment
In addition to the risk factors described above, unemployment
is a fundamental issue related to crime and violence
rates among young people. The World Bank estimates that
74 million people between the ages of 15 and 24 are
unemployed, which accounts for 41 per cent of all
unemployed persons. 173 In connecting these dots, most
research suggests that unemployed youths are disproportionately
more likely to be perpetrators, as well as victims, of
crime and violence. Unemployment, and especially longterm
unemployment, undermines human capital so that
work abilities and motivations ‘atrophy’. Unemployment is
also correlated with other aspects of social disadvantage,
such as low socio-economic status, family dysfunction and
prior criminal history. In this sense, the link between
employment, youth and criminal behaviour is part of a
process and a constellation of issues rather than the mark on
a line as an incident or event. 174
Few factors have affected the prospects of young
people more than the globalization of employment markets.
A recent address to the Goethe-Institut in Johannesburg
claimed that ‘supply shock’ has affected world labour
markets, and especially youthful job-seekers, as millions of
new workers have been added to world job markets due to
the influx of new labour from nations of the former Soviet
Union, the restructuring of China’s economy, India’s