Global Report on Human Settlements 2007 - PoA-ISS

Urban crime and violence: Policy responses
107
especially young men, who commit a larger proportion of
crimes. 94
The final area where there has been significant policy
development is in the strengthening of social capital. This
represents a recognition of the fact that to deflect youths
from a life of crime and to offer them more attractive alternatives,
the city needs to become a place where
opportunities abound for young people to participate fully in
economic, social, cultural and sporting activities. The importance
of this is that it is not a traditional ‘crime and violence
policy’, but essentially about addressing the social and
economic circumstances that cause young people to choose
a life of crime and violence.
Over and above these broad policy trends, there is a
further trend that appears significant. This has to do with the
processes used. Increasingly, it is being recognized that
initiatives need to be part of an integrated and comprehensive
programme, backed up by a broad strategy and founded
on good understanding of the issues addressed, as distinct
from an ad hoc basis. Consequently, it is now common to
find programmes of this nature containing elements of many
of the policy responses discussed in this chapter, which
recognize their mutually reinforcing nature. Very often, the
mechanism chosen for moving this approach forward is the
partnership mechanism, which is often accompanied by an
attempt to engage local communities in decision-making and
implementation.
There are two final points that also constitute emerging
policy trends. The first is the acceptance that solutions
cannot simply be borrowed from elsewhere where they may
have appeared to have worked, but must be adapted to the
local context. This raises important issues for the nature of
international assistance in this field since it suggests that it
needs to be as much about assisting with this process of
adaptation as it is about helping with the application of tried
and tested practices from home locations. The second and
related point is the need to evaluate what is being done
properly and to publicize such evaluations so that others can
learn from them. There are still far too many initiatives that
are not properly evaluated; 95 but the recognition of the need
to do this does seem to be becoming more widespread. In
addition, the potential for evaluation to contribute to collective
learning is greater than it has ever been by virtue of the
spread of internet access.
NOTES
1 See the discussion of this
issue in Chapter 3.
2 It is also the case that crime
has a very particular impact
at the individual level since it
is very often individuals and
the households of which
they are part who are the
victims of crime.
3 It should be noted that the
consequences of drug
trafficking are often experienced
locally.
4 A similar issue applies in this
case as well. The
consequences of the use of
such weapons in criminal
activities are, of course, felt
locally.
5 And the same applies here
also since much human
trafficking results in illegal
activities, such as prostitution
in urban areas.
6 See http://untreaty.un.org/
English/TreatyEvent2003/
Treaty_1.htm.
7 Interpol, 2006.
8 See www.unhabitat.org/
programmes/safercities/
approach.asp.
9 ECOSOC resolution 1995/9
of 24 July 1995.
10 UN-Habitat, 2005f, p27.
11 CEN, 2003.
12 Schneider and Kitchen,
2007.
13 Kitchen and Schneider, 2005
14 ODPM and the Home
Office, 2004.
15 Schneider and Kitchen,
2007, Chapter 7
16 DoE, 1994.
17 DETR, 2000.
18 ODPM and the Home
Office, 2004.
19 ODPM, 2005.
20 The discussion of the
response of the
Government of Jamaica
draws heavily from the case
study of Kingston prepared
for this <strong>Global</strong> <strong>Report</strong> by
Sherrian Gray (Gray, 2007).
21 See http://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Jamaica_Constabulary_
Force.
22 Most of the evaluative work
that has been done on this
issue relates to countries in
the developed world, and
very little such work has
been conducted on the
specific initiatives undertaken
by national
governments in the developing
and transitional worlds
to support efforts at the
urban level to tackle
problems of crime and
violence.
23 National Crime Prevention
Centre, 2005.
24 The information utilized
here has been taken from
the Government of
Australia’s Office of Crime
Prevention’s website at
www.crimeprevention.wa.
gov.au.
25 Government of Western
Australia, 2004.
26 Fox, 2002. See also the illustration
in UN-Habitat,
2006j, p13.
27 Women’s safety audits are
discussed in more detail
later in this chapter, when
measures to address the
risk of violence towards
women are reviewed. There
are several ways in which
audits of this nature could
be carried out; but, in
essence, they involve small
groups going out on site and
looking at local
environments from the
perspectives of women’s
safety (usually including
women who can bring some
local experience to bear on
this process) as part of an
intensive process in order
to identify potential
problems and to suggest
solutions to them.
28 UN-Habitat, 2006b, p13.
29 Florida Legislature, 2006.
30 Ibid.
31 Ibid.
32 Schneider, 2003.
33 For example, in the UK the
English Best Value User
Satisfaction Survey for
2003/2004 showed that the
top response of citizens to a
question about what makes
somewhere a good place in
which to live was a low level
of crime (ODPM, 2005a).
34 See, for example, Ekblom,
1997.
35 DTLR, 2001.
36 Morton and Kitchen, 2005
37 Schneider and Kitchen,
2007, Chapter 4.
38 Ibid.
39 UN-Habitat, 2006b, p15.
40 These figures, and other
material in this section, are
taken from Manso et al,
2005.
41 Ibid.
42 Ibid, p12.
43 Ibid, p1.
44 Ibid, 2005.
45 Ibid, 2005.
46 Ibid, 2005, pp11–12.
47 Ibid, 2005, p11.
48 The material here and in the
paragraphs that follow is
taken from Boamah and
Stanley, 2007.
49 Kitchen, 2007.
50 This, in essence, means that
planning decisions are taken
in accordance with the
provisions of the development
plan unless there are
clear, cogent and relevant
reasons why this should not
be so.
51 In some UK police forces,
the officers carrying out this
work go by different titles;
but for convenience they
will all be referred to as
architectural liaison officers.
52 Schneider and Kitchen,
2007.
53 Schneider and Kitchen,
2002.
54 For a fuller discussion of
many of the issues
surrounding CCTVs, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Closed-circuit_television.
55 Caldeira, 2000.
56 Manso et al, 2005.
57 The material reported here
is taken from Thompson
and Gartner, 2007.
58 This document can be found
at http://www.toronto.ca/
safety/sftyrprt1.htm.
59 The basis of the definition of
‘at-risk’ neighbourhoods
was not just their experience
of crime and violence,
but also their economic and
social circumstances.
60 This was noted particularly
during much of the discussion
in the sessions dealing
with crime and violence at
the World Urban Forum in
Vancouver by delegates
from cities in Central and
South America and Africa.
61 Manso et al, 2005.
62 Zaluar, 2007, suggests that
this was a factor in the high
level of shootings that were
not properly investigated in
that city.
63 Broadhurst et al, 2007.
64 Macedo, 2007.
65 Benevides and Ferreira,
1991; Bukurura, 1993;