Global Report on Human Settlements 2007 - PoA-ISS

Urban crime and violence: Conditions and trends
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are rarely gun purchasers, owners or users. The International
Action Network on Small Arms estimates that, globally,
30,000 women and girls are murdered by small arms each
year, while millions of others are injured by guns and
sexually abused at gun point. 188 Even if they are not directly
victims, women become indirectly victimized when male
relatives who are economic providers are murdered. This
undermines families, and the effects ripple throughout
communities and, ultimately, through states and globally.
When viewed in psychological and economic terms, the
direct and indirect impacts on children are incalculable, with
many killed, injured or left economically adrift. Thus, it is
worth restating that a single incident can have an enormous
multiplier effect. 189
Economic studies suggest that domestic violence has
negative impacts on productivity at broad scales. A study
calculating the costs of domestic violence in terms of lost
productive capacity for women found that the extrapolated
total costs were US$1.73 billion in Chile (1 per cent of GDP
in 1997) and US$32.7 million in Nicaragua (1.4 per cent of
GDP in 1997). 190 In subsequent research, the direct medical
costs plus lost productivity were calculated at being equivalent
to 2 per cent of GDP in Chile and 1.6 per cent of GDP in
Nicaragua. 191 As might be expected, the costs of IPV are
considerably higher in low- to moderate-income nations than
in high-income countries. Unlike wealthy nations where
costs of violence can be absorbed by resilient social and
economic structures, in low- to moderate-income nations,
the costs of violence are likely to be absorbed through direct
public expenditures and negative effects on investments and
economic growth.
Impacts of the fear of crime
Increased fear of crime of all types, but particularly violent
crimes such as murder, has a major impact and can be even
more paralysing and costly than actual criminal events. For
instance, a World Bank study in Zambia found that fear of
crime in one poverty-stricken community was preventing
teachers from showing up at work. 192 Similarly, a study of
the ‘timing’ of work concluded that higher homicide rates
reduced the propensity of people willing to work evenings
and nights in large American metropolitan areas. 193 In South
Africa, about 24 per cent of respondents to a national crime
survey reported that fear of crime stopped them from using
public transportation systems, with more than 25 per cent
indicating that they were reluctant to allow their children to
walk to school, while more than 30 per cent stopped using
public parks. 194
Although not easily quantified, these decisions translate
into social quality of life and economic costs to
individuals in terms of lost opportunities and added day-today
expenditures for transportation and educational and
urban services. Other ‘hidden’ costs of the fear of crime
affecting the quality of urban life play out in the choices that
individuals make in seemingly mundane decisions, such as
deciding whether to walk somewhere at night, or in more
fundamental ways, such as choosing where to live. In
Nairobi, survey data reveals that more than half of the
Box 3.4 Serial murder in a New Delhi slum
The vulnerability of the poor is illustrated by a recent case in New Delhi (India), where an
alleged serial murderer is reputed to have killed and dismembered as many as 17 women and
children and disposed of their body parts in a sewer drain behind his home. The victims were
all impoverished and the alleged killer is a wealthy businessman living in an upscale suburb.
Police reportedly discounted reports by relatives about their missing family members until a
public outcry was raised after some of the bodies were discovered behind the reputed
murderer’s home. One resident, who came from a nearby slum, came looking for her 16-yearold
son, who had been missing for four months, and said:‘When I told the police he had
disappeared, they told me to look for myself. Things would have been different if I’d been rich.
Then I could have bribed them to make them investigate.’
Source: Gentleman, 2007
citizens worry about crime all the time or very often. 195 In a
national survey conducted in South Africa, 26 per cent of
respondents stated that concerns about crime prevented
them from starting their own business. Such psychological
impacts obviously affect individuals, but also drain resources
from social service and healthcare systems.
The impacts of these decisions do not fully take into
account the social and economic costs of lost work productivity,
access to markets, urban sprawl (especially in
developed nations) or losses incurred from misused public
infrastructure, all by-products of work timing and travel
decision-making. These costs are compounded in developing
and transitional nations, where crime and violence can have
disastrous effects on victims who are unable to access effective
criminal justice or insurance systems that are widely
available in industrialized countries. Both systems provide
measures of indemnification against crime and violence that,
in personal and financial terms, are crucial components of
human resilience or the ability of people to successfully
adapt to elemental life disruptions.
National impacts of crime and violence
At national levels, high homicide and violent crime rates
have multiple impacts. Some of these may be illustrated by
economic and healthcare indicators. The former is demonstrated
in Kingston (Jamaica), where rising urban homicide
rates have been cited as a factor affecting national tourism,
with negative economic consequences at every level of
society. The World Bank has identified the impact of crime
on business as one of the major reasons for Jamaica’s weak
economic development. 196 The upsurge in violence and
insecurity that characterized Kenya during the 1990s
resulted in the reduction of both the influx of tourists and
the contribution of tourism to foreign exchange earnings. 197
A similar phenomenon is noted in Papua New Guinea, where
violent crime, particularly in some suburbs of Port Moresby,
discourages tourists from exploring the country. 198 Urban
crime in Papua New Guinea is seen as the most important of
all business costs. 199 Much of the brain drain in Latin
American and Caribbean nations has been attributed to fear
of crime and insecurity, compounded by the lack of effective
responses from state or civil society. 200 Countries such as
the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana,
Increased fear of
crime of all types,
but particularly
violent crimes such
as murder, has a
major impact and
can be even more
paralysing and costly
than actual criminal
events