World’s cities can be designed for peace

At the 2010 Crime Congress experts from universities, NGOs, and government officials noted that a number of myths on the connection between urbanization and crime are coming undone. Residential density does not breed crime, anonymity can be diminished through urban planning and civil society organizations show how living in large centers can mean more safety for all.

Crime prevention strategies discussed at UN workshop stressed the role of territory in association with crime. As specialists debated and exposed various urban initiatives that successfully brought down crime in major cities, they pointed out that a number of myths need to be dispelled in light of concrete evidence. The first misconception is the idea that cities and urban development are associated with increased risk of crime. Neither are big cities, nor are high levels of population density or poverty or even a history of involvement in armed conflict, necessarily factors to induce crime, they say.

Among the major factors that contribute to lowering crime however are initiatives that combat social exclusion, the isolation of marginalized populations and reclaim derelict areas of the city for use by locals. Such initiatives start by consulting locals on their needs and their perceptions of security, rely on surveys and then develop through partnerships with local administration.

Presenting initiatives on the Greater Cairo region, Khaled Abdelhalim (photo above) from Helwan University, discussed the opportunity for crime prevention using urban planning and design. In a densely populated area, the safety of inner streets need not rely on entrance of police forces. In his opinion, the community can take over becoming present in inner streets, increasing the sense of safety and leaving external areas for surveillance by police.

“In this initiative the police and locals meet midway”, said Abdelhalim adding that informed research and urban planning should be used, “it is a myth that crime, goes hand in hand with poverty of high residential density.” Abdelhalim also pointed out that there must be integration of local cultural norms into the use of space.

“It is not acknowledged when we talk about crime prevention on how cultural norms play a role in the perception of safety. For example the sexual harassment of women, what is offensive in one society may not be so in another.” Mr. Abdelhalim noted that new modernizing urban plans at times risk creating social divisions by not accommodating traditional uses of city area and threatening to remove large groups of residents in name of dissonant cultural values. “Planners have to think about what safety means to those people living locally, not simply for abstractions.”

Crime prevention: population and region specific

Steven Malby, from the UNODC, highlighted that urbanization can be both a protective factor or a risk factor for crime. “In general moving to cities is associated with decreasing crime when one compares with levels of crime in the rest of the country.”

He also noted that there is lack of data to carry out comparative studies on the prevalence of crimes around the world. The lack of shared definition of crimes increases the challenges for analysts. “On the other hand, it is not our goal at the UNODC to impose shared definitions of offenses, what we need to do is to understand how definitions vary, so that we can draw up and interpretive data comparatively.

Malby also stressed the role of victimization surveys, in getting at information that goes unrecorded in police stations. “We are also capacity building, in our Data for Africa project, we trained people in how to make victimization surveys in a number of African countries,” said Malby, noting the impact of the Addis Abba Workshop on crime data.

Speaking from over 21 years of experience in communities afflicted with violence in Trinidad and Tobago, Gregory Sloane-Seal (photo) discussed a seven step method that began with door to door visits to hear from locals what they wished for that community, moving to implementing rapid impact projects, such as the building of a children’s play area, to encourage community participation, and finally once goals are reached through a greater sense of security, the experience stresses continuing public recognition of the community’s accomplishments.

“The work starts with locals saying ‘I wish’ and they gain strength when they tell themselves ‘I am joining in’,” said Sloane-Seal, who noted the importance of partnerships with authorities, local groups, and a variety of actors.

Sloane-Seal also mentioned the importance of working with the “memory of crime”. Having reversed crime in communities previously described by newspapers as areas of armed war, he called attention to the fact that confidence in a new sense of peace always needs to be shored against the recollection of previous times of strife, or even previous enmities. “The fact that one community is at peace does not mean it has forgotten that a neighboring community was an enemy.”

He noted for example, that guns have not been given up in the region, “there are communities that have reached peace, having brought down levels of crime, but guns are still there. The firearms have not left the area, they simply have been put down, by choice.”

Sloane also noted the fact that the main actor in enforcing security needed support that is the police. “There was a history of police brutality in the area, and what we did was to provide for their emotional and psychological well being. By providing them with more support they were able to refrain from patterns of behavior that resorted to violence.

Bernardo Perez discussed the steep drop in crime rates in Medellin, Colombia, associated with the end of the cartel run by Pablo Escobar and the subsequent reigniting of crime since 2005. “The fact is that there was a culture of illegality in many areas of social exclusion in Medellin that generated deep suspicion among locals of the role of the state", he says. This affects most especially youths who are easy prey for human trafficking organizations. “Outbursts of crime are often come when there is change in local patterns of territory and power. It is undeniable that the state services must make sure they continue present in these areas in the long term.”

Fight for Peace

Fabio Sorgoni (photo), from the On the Road organization dedicated to outreach programs in Italy, said that for violence prevention for their organization has meant going into “non spaces” into areas of cities in Italy that are anonymous, near train stations, bus stations, in the outskirts of cities, travelling on trains, places chosen by marginalized people many of them undocumented migrants.

“It used to be that in the past we would look at people as distinct categories, as a homeless person, a drug user, a victim of trafficking. Now we came to the conclusion that these groups are often the same people, and it is known that these migrants are currently more the victims than perpetrators of crime. But they need to have access to services, and that is what our work does, under the notion of space-based welfare.”

His organization sent out social workers in trains to talk to prostitutes and guide them to services. “There were 1.7% migrants in Italy in 1990, now they number close to 7%. In the biggest Italian cities migrants make up 10 to 15% of the population, and in our primary schools the children of migrants number 30 to 40% of the student body. “To bring services to these people,” concluded Sorgoni, “is to make them less vulnerable to criminal organizations, and a form of violence prevention”.

Important crime prevention initiatives also focus on combining sports activities with citizenship training. One such program, Fight for Peace created by Luke Dowdney is active in the periphery of Rio de Janeiro and London, based on creating boxing academies in communities where groups males exert territorial control. Gabriela Pinheiro, Luta Pela Paz Interinstitutional Relations Manager, stressed the fact that these are youths who have long been out of school and unemployed, and who see in developing an interest in sport a way to connect with the formal work place “we stress the importance of understanding what it is to be a citizen and we help them find employment opportunities,” said Pinheiro, of the young men and women who have joined the project both sides of the equator.

Denis Mizne, executive-director of Brazil’s NGO Sou da Paz, form Sao Paulo, active in a number of partnerships with at São Paulo discussed the case of the City squares of Peace project Praças da Paz that helps local residents associations and youths revitalize squares as areas of continuous mingling, increasing the perception of personal security.

Mr. Mizne noted that in a number of crime prevention initiatives that are based on reclaiming public spaces, civil society organizations have taken the lead, developing experiences, finding evidence and offering model practices for adoption of authorities in terms of public policy.

The city belongs to all, he said, “today public security is seen as a problem that belongs to all of us, not only to the state and police forces, it is no longer an arid and distant issue. The contribution of civil society organizations to violence prevention has been clearly recognized.”

Finally, Brazil’s national public security secretary Ricardo Ballestreri stressed the need for supporting and training law enforcement, so that they are able to make informed decisions. “Few actors in society have the impact that the police have. They must be part of a continuing education process that privileges proximity policing with intelligence. We must do away with that old prejudice that said ‘forget what you learned at the academy, here on the streets things are different’.”

The secretary noted that public security problems are complex, and for complex problems, there are complex solutions. The crime prevention strategies discussed involve a complex web of partners, information gathering and multiple stages of enactment, as cities grow, so do the possibilities for peace.

Cover photo: Isaac Amorim / MJ

Read further:

Data for Africa

Fight for Peace website