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98Urban crime and violenceAvailable evidenceshows that crimeprevention throughenvironmentaldesign-basedapproaches to theprocesses of shapingnew developmenthave an importantcontribution tomake to crimepreventionCommunity-basedapproaches clearlyhave an importantrole to play in thelitany of responsesto crime andviolencehave an important contribution to make to crime prevention.52 This approach, which focuses on the setting of crime,links crime prevention and reduction to changes in physicaldesign. To date, most of the experience of applying thisapproach has been in the developed world. But subject totwo important conditions, there is no reason whyapproaches of this nature cannot be successful in developingcountries. The first of these conditions is the need forsupport for these approaches to be generated among thedevelopment communities of such localities so that attemptsto apply them do not become a running battle betweendevelopers, planners and the police. The second condition isthat appropriately trained staff must be available in order toput these approaches into practice. These issues are furthertaken up in Chapter 10.A final example of a type of initiative that is commonin many parts of the world is the use of closed circuit televisioncameras (CCTVs). The UK is an example of a countrywhich has deployed CCTV cameras widely during recentyears, not just in public places such as shopping centres andcar parks, but also in some residential areas. 53 This latterelement has been very controversial in the US because ofthe implications for civil liberties of installing cameras inresidential areas. There are other areas of controversy, suchas who owns and operates CCTV cameras and what usesthose responsible are allowed to make of the pictures taken.But the biggest controversy probably centres on the questionof whether or not they work as crime prevention tools. Dothey actually deter people from committing crimes, or dothey just make the subsequent process of tracking downperpetrators easier? Do they ease people’s fears of crime inpublic places, or after a while do people get used to thepresence of cameras and take little or no account of them?Do they encourage adaptive behaviour by criminals, whichmight include the displacement of crime into other areaswhere cameras are not ubiquitous? These are questions thatare still hotly debated; but what is clear is that CCTVcameras have now become a commonplace part of initiativesagainst crime and violence in many parts of the world. 54Planning and design interventions are generallygeared towards reducing vulnerability of targets (people andproperty) by increasing protection and discouraging delinquents.They also reduce general risk factors by reducingopportunities for violence. Finally, they favour the developmentof other resilience factors, linked to socialization,community involvement and policing. They are thereforelargely overlapping and contributing to other types of interventions.Community-based approaches to urbansafety and securityCommunity-based approaches clearly have an important roleto play in the litany of responses to crime and violence. It is,however, important to understand that this can mean a widerange of possible ways in different local circumstances. Atone end of the spectrum, some approaches are about helpingthe development and implementation of initiatives wherethe main impetus is from the community itself, and wherecommunity members will have an ongoing responsibility forthe initiative. In such instances, the role of the public sectoris likely to be primarily an enabling one. At the other end ofthe spectrum, community involvement in place-based initiativesmounted by the local authority seems to be essential ifthey are to have the maximum chance of success: such initiativesshould be ‘done with’ communities rather than ‘doneto’ them. Communities may not be the initiators; but theystill have a central role to play in shaping initiatives basedboth upon their local knowledge and upon the fact that, intheir daily lives as residents, what they do or do not do canmake a difference to what happens on the ground. It is alsopossible that the role of communities and their representativesmay grow throughout the life of a project, so that theymay take over as local wardens or stewards once communityacceptance has been secured. So a wide range of projecttypes might fit under this heading; but central to all of themis the concept of community engagement as being vital tothe success of such projects.It is also important to understand that communityresponses to crime and violence are not just about communitiesbanding together to tackle problems, whether or not thisinvolves working in partnership with the state. People,where they have or can put together the financial resources,also respond to problems of crime and violence throughincreasing urban segregation, with the affluent often choosingto live in gated communities or closed condominiumswhich they regard safer than the rest of the city. This hasbeen extensively studied in Latin American cities, where theleading work has traced how rising crime and insecurity inSão Paulo transformed it from a city characterized by opencirculation to one with a large number of ‘fortifiedenclaves’. 55 This came about not so much through any act ofdeliberate public policy, but rather through the exercise ofindividual and community choices on a considerable scale bythose who were rich enough to make such choices. Whilethis is wholly understandable from the point of view of suchindividuals, the effect on both the physical and the socialfunctioning of the city can be very negative.The above discussion is largely about how relativelywealthy elites in São Paulo have chosen to segregatethemselves physically from the problems being experiencedin the rest of the city. The conclusion should not be drawnthat processes of this nature inevitably leave the urban poorin such cities helpless and unable to do anything about theircircumstances. For example, the story of how crime andviolence have been addressed in Diadema is about takingpositive action to tackle crime and violence in part of thesame São Paulo conurbation of ‘fortified enclaves’. It ismainly about the importance of political leadership, aboutthe process of partnership between key agencies, and aboutdetermined action to tackle deep-seated problems. 56But one element of the Diadema story is also aboutthe community itself, and about the desire of that communityto see the extreme problems being tackled and to takeadvantage of the new opportunities being provided in orderto build better ways of life. What is illustrated here are twosets of phenomena that appear to exist side by side: privateaction by elites to insulate themselves from what they see as