Global Report on Human Settlements 2007 - PoA-ISS

10
CHAPTER
REDUCING URBAN CRIME
AND VIOLENCE
The primary purpose of this chapter is to explore some of
the most helpful ways forward for urban areas in seeking to
tackle issues of crime and violence, based on the discussion
in Chapter 4 of the policies being applied to this end. In this
regard, the chapter is divided into five sections. The first
explores the potential of the six groupings of policy
responses to crime and violence identified in Chapter 4. The
second section examines the emerging policy trends that
were also identified in Chapter 4 in terms of their future
utility. The third section looks at some of the key issues for
implementing policy that have been identified since it is
clear that one of the key challenges in this field is the need
to find effective ways of putting them into practice. The
fourth section pulls together some of the key issues that
arise from these discussions for the future of the UN-Habitat
Safer Cities Programme. The final section identifies 13 broad
propositions that reflect the conclusions of this chapter.
SCOPE FOR THE
CONTINUING
DEVELOPMENT OF KEY
POLICY RESPONSES
Chapter 4 identified six groups of policy responses to crime
and violence in urban areas:
1 enhancing urban safety and security through effective
urban planning, design and governance;
2 community-based approaches to enhancing urban safety
and security;
3 strengthening formal criminal justice and policing;
4 reducing risk factors;
5 non-violent resolution of conflicts; and
6 strengthening social capital.
Each of these is discussed in more detail below in terms of
its potential to contribute effectively to addressing crime and
violence in urban areas.
Enhancing urban safety and security through
effective urban planning, design and
governance
Chapters 3 and 4 have shown that poor planning, design and
management of cities are among the factors associated with
crime and violence. The idea that where crimes takes place is
something that should be of interest to the processes of
planning and urban design is a relatively new idea in terms of
its mainstream acceptance. But the reason why this matters
is that the work of these disciplines through their manipulation
of the physical environment has the potential either to
reduce the opportunity for crime to be committed or to
create such opportunities. The accumulated experience
from several parts of the world suggests that attempts to
manipulate the physical environment in order to reduce the
opportunity for crime as part of design processes are potentially
very useful elements in the fight against crime and
violence. 1
■ Building crime prevention into new and
existing environments
There are usually two primary elements to processes of this
nature: building crime prevention considerations into the
design processes that shape new development, and revisiting
problematic existing built environments where there is the
possibility that reshaping these might reduce the crime
problems that they are experiencing. This latter element is
often given less attention than the former; but in most
societies the amount of new development under consideration
is on a much smaller scale than the extent of
development that already exists. As a result, it is important
that attention should not be focused exclusively on new
development. Nonetheless, it is essential to get new development
right from a crime prevention perspective for three
reasons. First, the problems of crime are experienced by the
occupants of developments over protracted periods of time,
and this can be a major factor in public satisfaction (or otherwise)
with these developments. Second, developments that
encourage high levels of criminal activity are also likely to
put pressure on policing services, which, of course, is a
public cost. Third, retrofitting is inevitably a somewhat
constrained process; therefore, revisiting developments to
Experience from
several parts of the
world suggests that
attempts to manipulate
the physical
environment in
order to reduce the
opportunity for
crime …are potentially
very useful
elements in the fight
against crime and
violence