Global Report on Human Settlements 2007 - PoA-ISS

Urban crime and violence: Conditions and trends
77
crime in terms of corruption, as well as drug, arms and
human trafficking are examined. Thereafter, the impacts of
youth gangs on city spaces and services are briefly reviewed.
It is difficult to disentangle these subjects (e.g. the prevalence
of youth gangs in some cities is related to the supply of
illicit weapons and drugs supplied by adult-organized gangs),
and while separating them may be useful analytically, this
can only provide a hint as to how they actually interact in
cities across the globe.
■ Impacts of corruption
According to the World Bank, corruption is the largest single
obstacle to development. In Africa, corruption is perceived
to be even more important than other types of crime and
violence as a disincentive to entrepreneurial investment. 232
Corruption subverts the ability of governments and city
authorities to provide fair municipal services by distorting
planning and allocation processes. It is a significant factor for
those living in informal settlements since residents are
generally not recognized by urban authorities as having
rights to basic services, such as water, sanitation and
electricity. Access to such amenities is therefore often
dependent upon negotiations, which entail the paying of
bribes or favours to local officials. 233 Urban residents generally
bear the brunt of corruption because they require more
services from officials.
The impact of corruption is also evident in the registration
of land and construction of housing. In many cities of
developing countries, the registration of land, the planning
approval process and the inspection of housing construction
are fraught with numerous bureaucratic bottlenecks. For
instance, in Nigeria, the process of registering a property is
circuitous, involving 21 procedures, which takes about 274
days. 234 At each juncture, this process provides ample
avenues for government officials to extract bribes from
prospective builders. This has resulted in the approval of
shoddy plans and ineffective inspection during the construction
process, during which many deficiencies are overlooked.
This phenomenon partly accounts for the frequent collapse
of buildings that have occurred in cities such as Lagos and
Nairobi.
Corruption in many countries is particularly evident
in large-scale infrastructure projects, such as the construction
of roads, bridges and dams. These provide multiple
opportunities for both grand and petty corruption and many
entry points for organized crime. In this context, it has been
suggested that:
Bribes are paid to secure concessions and
kickbacks are provided in exchange for
contracts. Bid rigging occurs, shell companies
are established and procurement documents are
falsified. Sub-standard materials are used in
construction, regulators are paid off, and prices
for infrastructure services are inflated.
Compensation for forcibly displaced communities
ends up in the pockets of bribe-seeking local
officials. 235
The operation and maintenance of existing infrastructure,
which is a crucial aspect of urban management, can be
harmed by corruption. Expenditures that would normally be
used in maintaining existing facilities are directed towards
new infrastructure projects. In extreme cases, the maintenance
of existing infrastructure is deliberately neglected so
that it falls into a state of disrepair to the point that it has to
be rebuilt, thereby providing the opportunity for highly
placed officials to extort kickbacks from enterprises that will
rebuild the infrastructure. 236 The question arises as to
whether balanced local and community planning can take
place in an environment skewed to new infrastructure that
continually funnels cash into new projects at the expense of
maintaining existing infrastructure.
■ Impacts of drugs on neighbourhoods and
livelihoods
Organized drug trafficking reaches into communities where
local settings for transactions may include outdoor drug
markets on street corners or other public places that provide
ideal environments for recruiting new drug users. Easy
access, escape routes and vantage points from which to
survey the surroundings are common environmental attributes.
Such areas often provide physical and place
management cues to offenders and to residents, and they
attain reputations for criminal activity, often becoming no-go
zones. For these reasons, the neighbourhoods in which they
are located may be excluded from, or demoted on redevelopment
priority lists. In other cases, such as in the favelas of
Rio de Janeiro, drug bosses actively restrict the mobility of
residents, police and public officials, cutting off access to
justice systems, schools, health agencies and recreational
centres. 237 They accomplish this by the use of physical barriers,
intimidation and death threats, with the latter enforced
against residents of ‘enemy’ favelas who trespass.
Drug distribution networks in cities are varied and
range from centralized complex organizations to relatively
simple decentralized ones, such as those common in Central
America. In a growing number of cases, such networks illustrate
the evolution of gangs that have moved from being
structured around identity and territory issues to those that
are primarily profit-driven, highly organized criminal enterprises,
whose activities include not only retail drug
distribution, but also other aspects of the trade, including
smuggling, transportation and wholesale distribution. Such
schemes provide varying levels of income to participants and
even provide benefits to some communities, particularly in
the absence of assistance from formal institutions. For
example, drug trafficking was a major factor accounting for
infrastructure improvements in a Managua barrio, and was
crucial to its economic survival beyond the ‘mere subsistence’
level. 238 But drug trafficking was also responsible for
significantly increased violence in the neighbourhood and
increased urban segregation from below, as distinct from
that prompted by elites from above. 239 This illustrates the
more general point that drug trafficking is often a doubleedged
sword from the points of view of many distressed
communities. It provides benefits, including economic
survival options for some residents, while simultaneously
Corruption subverts
the ability of governments
and city
authorities to
provide fair municipal
services by
distorting planning
and allocation
processes
Drug distribution
networks in cities
are varied and
range from
centralized complex
organizations to
relatively simple
decentralized ones,
such as those
common in
Central America