Global Report on Human Settlements 2007 - PoA-ISS

76
Urban crime and violence
Abused children and
those who grow up
in violent family
settings stand a
much greater risk of
becoming offenders
than those who
have not had such
experiences
children and families, and to the offenders who prey on
them. Such results also tend to broaden gaps between
classes insomuch as wealthier citizens living in relatively
homogeneous urban enclaves protected by private security
forces have less need or opportunity to interact with poorer
counterparts.
Despite these generally negative assessments and
impacts, the growth of gated, privately guarded enclaves
remains a fact of life. Some states and communities have
regulated gating through planning and design ordinances or
though general law, as in South Africa’s Gauteng
Province. 224 Whether regulated or not, it is clear that the
global expansion of guarded and bounded private communities
is sobering evidence that citizen confidence in the
power of the state to ensure security is, at best, fragile,
especially in places where fear of crime is high, where public
authorities are seen as ineffectual and where economic
factors favour self-help solutions.
Neighbourhoods seen as high risk for burglaries,
robberies and other forms of violence gain reputations that
impede outsiders’ desire to travel, work and live there, and
lessen the ability of residents to receive social services, such
as a decent education or healthcare, which are fundamental
to the building of human capital. Moreover, residents of
such neighbourhoods become stigmatized and may be
excluded from outside employment opportunities. In some
instances, communities are isolated from the outside world,
as in the case of favelas in Brazil whose drug bosses cut off
territorial access to outsiders, and especially those from
‘enemy’ favelas. 225 Distressed communities such as these
tend to aggregate pathologies, such as the concentration of
offenders, which contribute to long-term stigmatization of
areas and unsustainable conditions.
■ Impacts of intimate partner violence and
child abuse
While the aggregate effects on cities are difficult to
measure, it is clear that IPV and child abuse destroy social
and human capital and contribute to the rising numbers of
street families and children in transitional and developing
nations. Many women who are victims of IPV not only
experience negative physical and psychological effects, but
are also affected financially due to lost productivity from
paid work, medical care costs, mental healthcare costs,
property loss and legal costs. They are also likely to earn less
than women who suffer no such violence. 226 Abused
children and those who grow up in violent family settings
stand a much greater risk of becoming offenders than those
who have not had such experiences. Furthermore, abused
children often perform poorly in school, thereby adversely
affecting their lifetime opportunities. 227 Thus, the impacts
of IPV and child abuse violence reverberate across time and
affect the economic prospects of families and communities
for generations. By diverting resources to public and private
policing and to incarceration, communities are less able to
mobilize sustained collaborative efforts to grapple with the
needs of battered and abused children and IPV victims.
Furthermore, children who are exposed to IPV are more
likely to abuse drugs and alcohol, run away from home, join
gangs and commit crimes. This ultimately diverts resources
from social and human capital building programmes and
services in terms of schools, libraries and medical facilities
into criminal justice operations, such as increased policing
and incarceration.
■ Impacts of the prevalence of street children
Street children are both victims and perpetrators of crime in
cities due to survival needs and exposure to cultures of
violence, including deviant peer behaviour. There is
evidence that their increasing numbers in some cities are
related to trafficking and organized crime. For instance, a
study on beggars in Bangkok (Thailand) revealed an organized
racket of child beggars built on children from poor
families trafficked from Cambodia and Burma, who are
forced to beg by their brokers. 228 The children make nothing
from their takings and are sometimes beaten. This example
highlights the economic exploitation of street children, and
implies that the growth in the number of street children has
an economic dimension.
Street children have little education, are sexually
active at a very early stage and, as such, stand a high risk of
contracting sexually transmitted diseases, including
HIV/AIDS. The females among them fall victims to teenage
pregnancy, thus becoming teenage mothers and perpetuating
a cycle of life on the streets. Street children are also at a
higher risk than other children of abusing drugs, especially
inhalants such as paint, glue, solvents or aerosols, which are
inexpensive, readily available and generally legal
substances. 229 Street children have contributed to increasing
the levels of crime and notoriety of the areas where they are
found. In Kenya, they have made the streets of Nairobi
highly insecure, where they specialize in mugging, purse and
jewellery snatching, pick pocketing, removing of side
mirrors from slow-moving or stationary vehicles in traffic
hold-ups, and the extortion of money from passers-by with
the threat to smear them with human waste should they
refuse. 230
From the foregoing, it is therefore not surprising that
public opinion of street children is overwhelmingly negative,
with many viewing street children as criminals, unsightly and
a menace to society. Public attitudes are often reflected in
abuses by police, and violence against street children is
reportedly widespread in several countries, including
Bulgaria, Brazil, Guatemala, India and Kenya. 231 Their
growing numbers and needs in terms of healthcare, education,
social services and security dwarf the capacities of
urban governmental agencies in most developing and transitional
nations.
Impacts of organized crime
As noted in the section on ‘The incidence and variability of
crime and violence’, corruption and organized crime,
especially at the grand scale, are often connected. Moreover,
the impacts of organized crime vary from global to local
levels, and data availability and format do not offer easy ways
of separating these distinctions. In the following subsections,
the interconnected impacts on cities of organized