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Urban crime and violence: Policy responses93and violence since the evidence suggests that this may wellbe one of the most important needs in the urban areas of thedeveloping world.One of the ways in which these processes can behelped is through partnering with cities in other parts of theworld that have relevant experience to offer in order to learnfrom that experience and also to speed up processes ofcapacity development. An important issue here is the needto borrow from experiences that are appropriate to localcircumstances. A good illustration of this is the discussion ofthe extent to which planning systems (mainly) in the developedworld are beginning to address crime prevention as anissue where they can have an impact through their controlover physical development.Even so, there were still many worries about howeffective and how efficient the planning systems were, 35 andclear evidence that not all planners have respondedconstructively to messages about the role of planning intackling issues of crime prevention. 36 These facts alonewould suggest the need for a degree of caution before muchyounger, much less well-established, and much less wellstaffedplanning systems attempt to do what the Britishsystem is trying to do (see Box 4.3), even if they felt it waswholly appropriate to their local situations. Indeed, it maywell be the case that one of the important issues in this fieldis the extent to which planning systems in the developingworld are able to build concerns for crime prevention intotheir work. If they do not encompass crime preventionconcerns, then that is one of the potential tools available fortackling crime and violence issues that will not be used. Butclearly there are significant issues to be addressed beforesuch practices are part of the planning lexicon in most partsof the world. This is further addressed in Chapter 10.URBAN GOVERNANCESTRUCTURES ANDPROCESSESTackling crime and violence is an issue of good urban governance.This section focuses on three issues. First, itexamines some of the influences which affect the ability ofprocesses of urban governance to address issues of crimeand violence in their localities, when they are not in controlof all the programmes or agencies that might need tocontribute to such an effort. Therefore, it is about some ofthe challenges that crime and violence issues pose for urbangovernance. Second, it looks at two examples of efforts toundertake programmes of this nature in localities that havebeen very seriously affected by crime and violence: Diademain the São Paulo metropolitan area of Brazil, and PortMoresby in Papua New Guinea. Finally, it discusses one ofthe big challenges that efforts of this kind too often face,which is the problem of corruption, both in the process ofmunicipal government and directly in police operations.It is important to note that in most cases theprocesses of urban governance involve exercising varioustypes of control or influence over many of the levers that areavailable for use in tackling crime and violence. For example,while the arrangements for controlling the work of thepolice service vary from one country to another, and ofteninvolve structures covering much wider areas than individualcities, it is not unusual to see within such structures arrangementsthat acknowledge the particular issues experienced inthe city and that provide for close working links between thepolice and the local authority. Similarly, attempts to getplanning systems, by virtue of their control over new development,to consider crime prevention as part of this processalmost always, in practice, happen at local authority levelsince this is the level at which most such decisions are takenand since it is usually at this level that planning services arecontrolled. Getting planning and police services to worktogether on crime and violence issues is still relatively new. 37It needs to be remembered that although this is a newfield for planners, it is also very much a ‘non-traditional’activity for the police. Available evidence suggests that only alimited number of police work in this kind of crime preventionactivity compared with more traditional policeoperations. 38 It is also the case that local authorities will seeissues of crime and violence as affecting two of their primaryconcerns: the quality of life of their citizens and the ability oftheir city to develop its economy. If these two factors areseen as being adversely affected by issues of crime andviolence, then there is increased likelihood that the processof urban governance will seek to address this problem areaas a major priority. So, while local authorities are, to a largeextent, involved in dealing with crime and violence by virtueof their mainstream activities, there clearly are circumstancesthat can cause this issue to rise to, or near, the top ofthe agenda of urban priorities.It can also be argued persuasively that the need toensure that levels of crime and violence are low and that fearof crime does not intrude in any significant way into the lifedecisions that citizens make is an integral element in goodurban governance:Urban governance is inextricably linked to thewelfare of the citizenry. Good urban governancemust enable women and men to access thebenefits of urban citizenship. Good urban governance,based on the principle of urbancitizenship, affirms that no man, woman orchild can be denied access to the necessities ofurban life, including adequate shelter, securityof tenure, safe water, sanitation, a cleanenvironment, health, education and nutrition,employment and public safety, and mobility.Through good urban governance, citizens areprovided with the platform which will allowthem to use their talents to the full to improvetheir social and economic conditions. 39Public safety is one of the necessities of urban life to whichall citizens have the right of access. But it is clear that thisdesirable goal is not attained in many cities in the world. It isalso clear that local authorities cannot rely simply on exercisingtheir mainstream functions efficiently and effectively inorder to change this situation. So, what is needed over andGetting planningand police servicesto work together oncrime and violenceissues is stillrelatively newPublic safety is oneof the necessities ofurban life to whichall citizens have theright of access