Global Report on Human Settlements 2007 - PoA-ISS

94
Urban crime and violence
above what might be described as the qualities of good
public administration in order to move in this direction?
Three qualities, in particular, seem to stand out in this
context: political will, sustained commitment to action, and
strong and visible leadership.
Some examples of the application of these qualities
are given in the following sub-sections, which utilize two
cases, in particular, where major efforts have been made or
are in the process of being made to tackle very high levels of
crime and violence. These are Diadema, a suburb in the São
Paulo urban region of Brazil and Port Moresby in Papua New
Guinea.
Diadema, São Paulo
Diadema is a relatively recent creation as a suburb of São
Paulo (Brazil). Its population grew at an annual average rate
of 16 per cent between 1950 and 1980, before slowing to an
annual average rate of 2.2 per cent over the next two
decades. 40 These growth rates are well in excess of those
experienced by São Paulo. Consequently, Diadema has
become the second most densely developed location in
Brazil. This rapid growth, much of it caused by in-migration
of some of Brazil’s poorest people, seems to have
overwhelmed the capacity of civic institutions to cope, and
one of the consequences of this was the emergence of
‘frontier violence’. 41 This relates to the fact that Diadema’s
high level of violence had features in common with some
periods of pioneer settlement in the history of other parts of
the world – precarious forms of territorial occupation,
absence of government and poor local organization.
By the1990s, Diadema experienced murder rates
which were among the highest in the world – 141 per
100,000 individuals in 1999. Gang violence and intense
inter-gang rivalry were widespread. This period was characterized
by anarchy and complete breakdown of law and
order. The inability of the police and legal system to tackle
crime and violence meant that a group of people called the
justiceiros dished out their own version of law and order,
which included killings. All of this had a generally negative
impact on the quality of life of the people and on the opportunities
available to them. Problems of this magnitude are
clearly not going to be tackled by a single initiative; but critical
to the process of turning this situation around was the
desire of some of the mayors of Diadema over a period of
time to make a difference. The progress that Diadema has
experienced over the past decade or so is described as
follows:
We easily can exaggerate the progress in
Diadema. Its broad central avenues, with bus
terminals, supermarkets, fast food restaurants
and automobile distributorships, no longer
create the impression of a poor city… However
… homicide rates are still high, despite their
reduction in recent years. The average monthly
income of family heads in Diadema in 2000 was
half the average for the municipality of São
Paulo. But the combined effect of its political
structure, of the strengthening of its public
institutions and the expansion of commerce has
been very positive, showing how much its
people value stability. Diadema has also shown
that the problem of homicides can be reduced
fairly quickly with a political effort based on a
community consensus and more effective action
by the authorities. Four decades after the start
of the migratory surge of precarious settlement,
Diadema no longer is a city trapped in a
downward spiral of apparently insoluble crises.
Instead, it is showing the strength of democracy
and is emerging on the crest of a process of
civilization. 42
One initiative that seems to have been important in this
process was the enactment and the enforcement of a law to
close all bars in the city after 11.00 pm. The reason for this
was that a high proportion of the murders in the city took
place in or near these bars between 11.00 pm and 2.00
am. 43 The process of making this happen involved a
protracted period of discussion in the city council around
three issues, in particular. These were a recognition of the
need to confront many vested interests if such a new law
was not going to be undermined by exceptions; 44 the need
for an intense campaign of publicity and persuasion; and
then the need to commit to a major enforcement effort
which would have to involve partnership between several
public institutions that had not always worked in the past.
This seems to have had an immediate effect since the
monthly homicide rate in the first month of enforced
closures fell to eight from previous figures that were
typically four or five times higher than this. 45
One element in this process may well be the fact that
homicide rates in the Greater São Paulo area were falling
anyway during the early years of the 21st century, with
Diadema being both a leading element in this process and a
beneficiary of the general economic forces that seem to have
been helping it. One of the particular characteristics of this
process is that locations that were once crime hotspots are
being turned over to new forms of economic activity that are
pushing out crimes and criminals, as the following assessment
illustrates:
The public space exposed to violence is shrinking.
As in the rest of Greater São Paulo, few
streets in Diadema remain without paving and
lighting. In the periphery, a spontaneous
quarantine is developing that tends to isolate
bandits from citizens who want to live in peace
and avoid problems. Each group recognizes and
respects the sphere of the other, but keeps its
distance. A force reducing the space for
violence is the expansion of commerce at all
levels, from the new supermarkets to street
sellers and small neighbourhood repair shops,
to women selling candy and cake out of their
homes. At the edge of Jardim Campanario, a
vacant municipal lot used to be a killing ground