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Date: November 22, 2024 Fri

Time: 11:58 am

Results for urban areas and crime

45 results found

Author: Pradhan, Kanhu Charan

Title: Violent Crimes in Megacities

Summary: This note presents the situation of violent crimes in Indian megacities (35 megacities with more than ten lakh population in 2001) based on the information published in “Crime in India” by the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) .

Details: Munich: MPRA Munich Personal RePEc Archive, 2011. 7p.

Source: Internet Resource: MPRA Paper No. 35274: Accessed May 3, 2012 at: http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/35274/1/MPRA_paper_35274.pdf

Year: 2011

Country: India

URL: http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/35274/1/MPRA_paper_35274.pdf

Shelf Number: 125140

Keywords:
Cities and Crime
Crime Statistics (India)
Urban Areas and Crime
Violent Crimes

Author: Davis, Diane E.

Title: Urban Resilience in Situations of Chronic Violence

Summary: While the sources and forms of social and political violence have been extensively examined, the ways ordinary people along with their neighbors and officials cope with chronic urban violence have earned far less attention. This eight-case study of cities suffering from a history of violence explores this latter phenomenon, which we call resilience. We define resilience as those acts intended to restore or create effectively functioning community-level activities, institutions, and spaces in which the perpetrators of violence are marginalized and perhaps even eliminated. This report identifies the sets of conditions and practices that enhance an individual or a community’s capacity to act independently of armed actors. We specify the types of horizontal (e.g., intra-community, or neighborhood-to-neighborhood) and vertical (e.g., state-community) relationships that have been used to sustain this relative autonomy. Violence and responses to it are situated in physical space, and we look for the spatial correlates of resilience, seeking to determine whether and how physical conditions in a neighborhood will affect the nature, degrees, and likelihood of resilience. Urban resilience can be positive or negative. Positive resilience is a condition of relative stability and even tranquility in areas recently or intermittently beset by violence. Strong and cooperative relationships between the state and community, and between different actors—businesses, civil society, the police, etc.—tend to characterize positive resilience. Negative resilience occurs when violence entrepreneurs have gained effective control of the means of coercion, and impose their own forms of justice, security, and livelihoods. In such situations—most frequently in informal neighborhoods where property rights are vague or contested—the community is fragmented and seized by a sense of powerlessness, and the state is absent or corrupted. Our findings suggest that resilience appears at the interface of citizen and state action, and is strengthened through cooperation within and between communities and governing authorities. Resilience is robust and positive when ongoing, integrated strategies among the different actors yield tangible and sustainable gains for a particular community: improvement in the physical infrastructure, growing commercial activity, and communityoriented policing, to name three common attributes. When citizens, the private sector, and governing authorities establish institutional networks of accountability that tie them to each other at the level of the community, a dynamic capacity is created to subvert the perpetrators of violence and establish everyday normalcy. The security activities produced through citizen-state networks are most accountable, legitimate, and durable when they are directed and monitored by communities themselves, in a relationship of cooperative autonomy. More broadly, urban resilience benefits from good urban planning—promoting and investing in mixed commercial and residential land use, for example, particularly in areas of the city at-risk for crime, and building infrastructure that enables free movement of people within and between all neighborhoods (via pedestrian corridors; parks; public transport) to promote security and livelihoods. This speaks to the challenge of informality—the communities built up, usually on the city’s periphery, without regard to ownership rights. The legal entanglements of informality can be daunting, but some cities have finessed this to provide services, with substantially positive outcomes. Formal property rights or not, citizens of all income groups need to have the opportunity to live in vibrant areas where social, economic, and residential activities and priorities reinforce each other in ways that bring a community together in the service of protecting and securing those spaces. This process yields good results for the entire metropolitan area. Finally, this report develops the idea of legitimate security as a way to address the vexing interactions of the state and communities in the provision of security and positive resilience. The relationship of at-risk communities with the police is often troubled. Legitimate security addresses this by seeking to ensure democratic and participatory governance in every sense—political, civil, and social. It recognizes needs specific to marginalized and underrepresented populations, including ethnic/racial minorities, women, the poor, and indigenous groups. It is, moreover, a viable alternative to deleterious responses to insecurity—e.g., privatization of security, fortification of urban spaces, and vigilantism, among others. Legitimate security fosters broad participation and initiatives from “below” with an increased focus on multi-sector partnerships to provide more effective, lasting, and accountable ways forward for cities seeking security.

Details: Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Center for International Studies; Washington, DC: United States Agency for International Development, 2012. 134p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 17, 2012 at: http://web.mit.edu/cis/urbanresiliencereport2012.pdf

Year: 2012

Country: International

URL: http://web.mit.edu/cis/urbanresiliencereport2012.pdf

Shelf Number: 126361

Keywords:
Crime Prevention
Neighborhoods and Crime
Social Capital
Urban Areas and Crime
Urban Planning
Violence
Violent Crime

Author: Papachristos, Andrew

Title: 48 Years of Crime in Chicago: A Descriptive Analysis of Serious Crime Trends from 1965 to 2013

Summary: Over the past two decades, the United States has experienced an unpredicted drop in crime. Chicago, while often portrayed as a violent city, has seen sustained drops in violent crime and homicide rates during this time, but particularly recently. Using annual crime data, this report briefly describes temporal and spatial trends of major index crime in Chicago from 1965 to 2013. Overall, Chicago - like other U.S. cities - experienced a significant decline in overall crime and violent crime. Present day levels of violent crime are, in fact, at their lowest rates in four decades. Furthermore, nearly all communities experienced declines in crime, although the rates of decline were greater in some communities than others. Over the past three years, for example, all but five communities (out of 77) experienced declines in violent crime. Those areas that experienced increases were and continue to be some of Chicago's safest areas. While the drop in violent crime is shared between low and high crime areas alike, there remain areas of the city where violent crime rates are unacceptably high. Rates of homicide have also decreased over this period following the overall city-wide pattern, with some unique patterns emerging surrounding the contexts of gang homicide. The objective of this report is to simply document these historical trends and not to assign any casual interpretations of the vanguards of crime rates of this period. Directions for future investigation are also discussed.

Details: New Haven, CT: Institution for Social and Policy Studies, Yale University, 2013. 20p.

Source: Internet Resource: ISPS Working Paper, ISPS 13-023: Accessed March 13, 2014 at: http://isps.yale.edu/sites/default/files/publication/2013/12/48yearsofcrime_final_ispsworkingpaper023.pdf

Year: 2013

Country: United States

URL: http://isps.yale.edu/sites/default/files/publication/2013/12/48yearsofcrime_final_ispsworkingpaper023.pdf

Shelf Number: 131901

Keywords:
Crime Rates
Crime Statistics
Crime Trends
Urban Areas and Crime
Violent Crime

Author: Pavanello, Sara

Title: Survival in the City: Youth, displacement and violence in urban settings

Summary: - Youth, displacement and violence in urban environments are treated as separate areas in humanitarian research, policy and practice. Despite being a key driver of vulnerability, urban violence and its humanitarian consequences are not well understood by the humanitarian community. - Displaced populations, particularly displaced youth, are often particularly exposed to urban violence. However, their needs and vulnerabilities typically go unaddressed. - Tackling the causes of violence in urban settings is a challenge that goes beyond strictly humanitarian concerns to encompass long-term development efforts. While humanitarian action is an important element of the response to urban violence it is inherently limited, and a complementary approach involving development strategies and programmes is required to tackle the root causes of this violence.

Details: London: Overseas Development Institute, Humanitarian Policy Group, 2012. 4p.

Source: Internet Resource: HPG Policy Brief 44: Accessed September 15, 2014 at: http://www.odi.org/sites/odi.org.uk/files/odi-assets/publications-opinion-files/7627.pdf

Year: 2012

Country: International

URL: http://www.odi.org/sites/odi.org.uk/files/odi-assets/publications-opinion-files/7627.pdf

Shelf Number: 133320

Keywords:
At-Risk Youth
Urban Areas and Crime
Urban Violence
Violent Crime

Author: Echazarra, Alfonso

Title: Social disorganisation, immigration and perceived crime in Spanish neighbourhoods

Summary: This dissertation adopts a quantitative approach to investigate the determinants of residents' perceptions of neighbourhood crime, focusing specifically on a series of structural factors at the community level, in accordance with the social disorganisation model. Using different statistical models, including correlations, linear regression, multilevel models and spatial regression analyses, and several Spanish data sources, in particular the 2001 Population and Housing Census and a nationally representative survey conducted in 2006, the research confirms the relevance of its exogenous sources in explaining perceived neighbourhood crime. These include classical variables, such as neighbourhoods' socioeconomic status, residential stability, ethnic diversity, family disruption and degree of urbanisation, but also other features related to the time, skills and resources deployed by residents in their residential areas such as commuting time to work, the number of working hours and the availability of a second home. For its part, other local conditions traditionally associated specifically with perceived neighbourhood crime, such as social incivilities and physical decay, act as mediators of other contextual effects, in particular of the number of retail shops and offices.The research also demonstrates the urban nature of the social disorganisation theory. That is, that the local conditions typically associated with social disorganisation, urban unease and the various social problems that can affect neighbourhoods, are better predictors of residents' perceptions of crime in town and large cities than in rural areas, operationalized as municipalities of less than 5,000 inhabitants. Small municipalities seem particularly successful in controlling their younger residents for neither the proportion of adolescents and young adults, nor the number of children per family exert an important effect on residents' perceptions of neighbourhood crime. Among these local conditions, special attention has been devoted to measures of diversity and immigration demonstrating that their effect on residents' perceptions of neighbourhood crime, except for the positive impact of Asians, is not necessarily robust to different model specifications and statistical methods. This erratic immigrant effect is surprising given how consistent the belief in a crime-immigration nexus is among Spaniards. Precisely on this point, the dissertation has investigated why the belief in a crime-immigration nexus varies significantly between individuals and across communities. Three variables have been identified as determining factors: contextual parochialism, right-wing ideology and the media. In rural areas with high residential stability, a significant presence of elderly population and a low socioeconomic status, residents are more likely to unconsciously associate immigration and crime, even when individual attributes are adjusted for and, more importantly, even if few migrants live in the surroundings. Not surprisingly, right-wing residents are more likely to associate both phenomena yet, in contrast to many statements by scholars and pundits, the media in Spain seems to exert a moderator effect.

Details: Manchester, UK: University of Manchester, School of Social Sciences, 2012. 255p.

Source: Internet Resource: Dissertation: Accessed October 1, 2014 at: https://www.escholar.manchester.ac.uk/api/datastream?publicationPid=uk-ac-man-scw:183476&datastreamId=FULL-TEXT.PDF

Year: 2012

Country: Spain

URL: https://www.escholar.manchester.ac.uk/api/datastream?publicationPid=uk-ac-man-scw:183476&datastreamId=FULL-TEXT.PDF

Shelf Number: 127611

Keywords:
Immigrants and Crime
Neighborhoods and Crime (Spain)
Social Disorganization
Socioeconomic Conditions and Crime
Urban Areas and Crime

Author: Levy, Horace

Title: Inner city, killing streets, reviving community

Summary: Jamaica stands out world-wide for its extremely high rate of homicides. Less known but no less significant is the steady and threatening rate of homicidal increase - and beyond the numbers the daily, endless weeping, the habituation to violence and its ingraining in the life of a people. Still less accessible to the world have been the predictions of knowledgeable observers on the ground for more than a decade that worse was to come. What did these observers see - who evidently did not find the source of the problem all that abstruse - that those did not who might have been able to check the increase, head off the consequences and prevent the pain? Or if they did, were slow or unwilling to act? And why so unseeing - and unwilling? Over 40 per cent of the homicides in Jamaica - it used to be 70 per cent until the epidemic spread - occur in the communities of Kingston's inner city and in a context of community violence. It is clearly necessary, if this current of homicidal violence is to be checked, to examine the community context, the possible sources there of the violence and any countering attempts that have been made, those in particular that have been effective. Hopefully any conclusions reached will have some impact on policy with those who make it. The task then is to trace, even if fairly briefly, the trajectory of violence since the formation of political parties in the late 1930s and early 1940s, while paying special attention to the underlying continuity factor, which is community. A theoretical framework highlighting the importance of the community in civil society as well as the contrary significance of violence will also be tentatively and summarily advanced. This study, then, adopts as a working hypothesis that, however insufficiently recognised by policy makers, community plays a critical role in local homicide. Historically on a national scale community has been paid enormous attention from the days of Jamaica Welfare, which was started in 1937 by Norman Manley, one of the "fathers of the nation". The specific quasi-community or anti-community formation playing a role in homicide is the "garrison". It came into existence between 1965 and 1975 - the major exemplars, that is, and since then most of lower-income Kingston has been garrisoned - but had its foundations laid much earlier. The organization and structure of governance of the garrison are carefully scrutinized in this paper, with examination of actual instances leading to the identification of a typology that explains much of garrison behaviour.

Details: Kingston, Jamaica: Arawak, 2009. 93p.

Source: Internet Resource: Arawak Monograph Series: Accessed May 29, 2015 at: http://sta.uwi.edu/conferences/12/icopa/documents/Horace%20Levy%20PAPER%20Inner%20city%20killing%20streets%20reviving%20the%20community.pdf

Year: 2009

Country: Jamaica

URL: http://sta.uwi.edu/conferences/12/icopa/documents/Horace%20Levy%20PAPER%20Inner%20city%20killing%20streets%20reviving%20the%20community.pdf

Shelf Number: 135799

Keywords:
Communities
Gangs
Homicides
Urban Areas and Crime
Violence
Violent Crime

Author: Norwegian Church Aid

Title: Exploiting Inequalities: Conflict and Power Relations in Bel Air

Summary: Once a buzzing middle-class neighborhood of artists and intellectuals, Bel Air is today an impoverished neighborhood with a reputation for chronic instability, controlled to a large extent by gang leaders and criminals. Less known and researched than its infamous neighbor Cite Soleil in the Haitian capital city of Port-au-Prince, Bel Air represents an interesting case study of the complex structural and proximate factors that - individually and collectively - explain the state of fragility in this urban hotbed. Taken together, these factors offer a new understanding of the destabilizing consequences that the urban violence in Bel Air could lead to at the local, national and even international levels. Through the process of rapid urban migration, the densely populated and increasingly impoverished neighborhood Bel Air came to be strongly associated with former President Aristide's Lavalas movement. Aristide drew heavily upon the existing neighborhood associations or baz to safeguard his power, following in the footsteps of a long history of Haitian presidents who employed local armed groups to solidify their power. Embattled by the economic elite who felt their interests threatened by his pro-poor rhetoric, Aristide was blamed for arming the base structures and creating the paramilitary phenomenon responsible for the acute increases in violence. Violence had begun to decline following political reconciliation efforts and violence reduction strategies, combined with the actions of the UN Stabilization Mission and NGOs to implement law enforcement operations, beginning in late 2006. However, since the January 12, 2010 earthquake, the area known as Greater Bel Air has experienced an upsurge in violence, peaking in 2012. This conflict analysis for Greater Bel Air examines the driving factors of conflict, key actors, "connectors and dividers" and gender dimensions of conflict. The overall purpose is to improve the effectiveness of future peacebuilding programs in Greater Bel Air, by ensuring that they are addressing key driving factors of conflict. A specific objective for Norwegian Church Aid is to systematize and make explicit the information and insights gathered from a wide range of informants and organizations working on conflict resolution and violence reduction in Greater Bel Air, and to create a baseline upon which further programming can be developed. The conflict analysis is primarily based upon a desk study of existing analyses, academic research and other studies, combined with updated information gathered through interviews with key informants and focus groups. Key informants were identified among stakeholders from civil society, the private sector, local/national government including the police, the United Nations, national and international NGOs, religious leaders and peace practitioners. 46 interviews and six focus groups, made up of 8 - 13 participants from different sectors of society and from different sub-areas of Great Bel Air, were carried out over a two week period in July- August and one week in November 2013. Greater Bel Air and Haiti provides a unique context for understanding violence as it is a country that has not undergone war, and yet it is a situation where cyclical violent conflict has become entrenched in the sociopolitical life of Haitian society. A country born out of the world's first successful slave revolt, the roots of violence and resistance to injustice run deep, dating back to the system of slavery and the legacy of structural injustice perpetuated by this economic model. The disparities of power and wealth between the impoverished urban masses and the elite have often been marked with violence. Pervasive political, economic and social tensions are played out through local level violence between individuals and small groups, largely centered in Haiti's popular neighborhoods, but are often linked level turmoil, political and economic crises.

Details: P�tion Ville, Haiti: Norwegian Church Aid Haiti, 2014. 63p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed June 4, 2015 at: https://www.kirkensnodhjelp.no/her-jobber-vi/haiti/exploiting-inequalities/

Year: 2014

Country: Haiti

URL: https://www.kirkensnodhjelp.no/her-jobber-vi/haiti/exploiting-inequalities/

Shelf Number: 135902

Keywords:
Neighborhoods and Crime
Poverty
Socioeconomic Conditions and Crime
Urban Areas and Crime

Author: Ellen, Ingrid Gould

Title: The Impact of Foreclosures on Neighborhood Crime

Summary: In the last few years, mortgage foreclosures have uprooted millions of households, and many have expressed concern that the foreclosed homes they leave behind are increasing crime. The three papers that emerged from our project study this question by examining whether and how elevated foreclosures affect different types of crime in the immediately surrounding area, in five cities around the country. In our first paper, we use point-specific, longitudinal crime and foreclosure data from New York City to examine how foreclosures affect crime on the same blockface- an individual street segment including properties on both sides of the street. We compare changes in crime on blockfaces after homes on the blockface enter foreclosure to changes on other blockfaces in the same neighborhood that did not experience foreclosures during the same time period. To bolster our confidence in a causal relationship, we also estimate regressions that control for future foreclosure notices. These future foreclosures cannot affect crime today, but they help to capture unobserved differences in trends between those blockfaces where foreclosures occur and those where they do not. In brief, while much of the association between foreclosures and crime is explained by both occurring on similar blockfaces, we find that marginal foreclosures on a blockface lead to a small number of additional violent and public order crimes. Our results are robust to both OLS and negative binomial estimation. As expected, effects are largest for foreclosed properties that go all the way through the foreclosure process to an auction. The effects of foreclosure extend to crime on neighboring blockfaces, but these effects are attenuated. When estimating threshold-level models, we find that foreclosures have a larger effect on crime after there are three foreclosures on the block. In our second two papers we focus more on identifying mechanisms and also extend our analysis to four other cities to test for generalizability. Our second paper, focused on Chicago, finds similar results as we did in New York City: an increase in the number of properties that receive foreclosure notices appears to increase total, violent, and public order crime on blockfaces in Chicago. In addition, our estimates suggest that foreclosures change the location of crime. They increase crime that occurs inside residences, but if anything reduce crime outside on the street. Foreclosures are also associated with substantively large (but weakly estimated) effects on crime within vacant buildings. Finally, increases in foreclosures are associated with increases in the number of 311 calls made to the City of Chicago about problems such as vacant buildings, rodents, graffiti, and other types of physical disorder increase in the following quarter. This suggests that the crime increase may come from an increase in physical disorder. In our third paper, we explore the relationship between foreclosures and crime in five cities, Atlanta, Chicago, Miami, New York, and Philadelphia. Overall, we find that properties banks take over through foreclosure (real estate owned or REO) are associated with higher crime both in the census tract and on the blockface. However, once we control for the number of properties in the foreclosure process (which we can do in three cities), we find no evidence that the presence of REO properties increases crime. Rather, it is the properties on the way to foreclosure auctions that appear to elevate crime. In other words, the crime increases caused by foreclosures appear to be driven by the reduced maintenance and investment of 'limbo' properties that are in transition to bank ownership. Collectively, these results suggest that local law enforcement and housing agencies should track foreclosure notices and monitor properties as they go through the foreclosure process, as their owners have little incentive to maintain them.

Details: Report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice, 2015. 45p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 21, 2015 at: https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/248653.pdf

Year: 2015

Country: United States

URL: https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/248653.pdf

Shelf Number: 136845

Keywords:
Economics and Crime
Housing Foreclosures
Mortgage Foreclosures
Neighborhoods and Crime
Property Crimes
Urban Areas and Crime
Vacant Properties

Author: Vigneswaran, Darshan

Title: Being like a state: policing space in Johannesburg

Summary: This paper looks at the legacies of segregation in Africa. The study is specifically interested in the aftermath of Apartheid, in Johannesburg South Africa. Now that the Apartheid plans and laws are on the scrapheap, a series of leftovers, hangovers and attenuated dynamics continue to help create urban divides across the city. These are not strict, marked, formal boundaries, but 'frontiers': semi-permeable, implicit zones which define where the various racial and class groups in Johannesburg go, and clarify how they are treated when they do. In order to understand the emergence of new urban frontiers, I engage with James Scott's (1998) theory of spatial control and resistance in development planning outlined in 'Seeing Like a State'. I explore how individual metis is implicated in the reconstruction of authoritarian, or at the very least oppressive and non-democratic forms of social and political space in Johannesburg. I argue that the high modernist system of Apartheid was not simply embedded in plans and laws, but in the people who were responsible for its implementation and the people who were subject to the laws. I show how this institutional memory influences their responses to human mobility across the urban landscape.

Details: Amsterdam: Gottingen: Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, 2010. 40p.

Source: Internet Resource: MMG working paper 10-15: Accessed January 28, 2016 at: http://www.mmg.mpg.de/fileadmin/user_upload/documents/wp/WP_10-15_Vigneswaran_Policing-Space.pdf

Year: 2010

Country: Somalia

URL: http://www.mmg.mpg.de/fileadmin/user_upload/documents/wp/WP_10-15_Vigneswaran_Policing-Space.pdf

Shelf Number: 137704

Keywords:
Public Space
Urban Areas
Urban Areas and Crime

Author: Reichert, Jessica

Title: Male Survivors of Urban Violence and Trauma: A qualitative analysis of jail detainees

Summary: Urban violence is a major public health concern and at epidemic levels in some neighborhoods, directly impacting the mental health of its residents (Morris, n.d.). The rate of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among urban populations is estimated to be around 31 percent, higher than the PTSD rate among returning Iraq war veterans of 17 percent (Donley et al., 2012; Hoge, Terhakopian, Castro, Messer, Engel, 2007). Research has found traumatic events in urban neighborhoods can be associated with later criminal activity and substance use (Breslau, Chilcoat, Kessler, & Davis, 1999; Breslau, Davis, & Andreski, 1995; Scott, 2010; Widom & Maxfield, 2001). An estimated 6.3 million people in the United States are in need of PTSD treatment, with higher proportions of sufferers concentrated in urban cities (Norris & Slone, 2013).The cost of gun violence is estimated at $174 billion including loss of work productivity, medical care, pain and suffering, insurance, and criminal justice expenses (Miller, 2012). Researchers from the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority (Authority) and WestCare Foundation Illinois documented self-reported characteristics, experiences, and backgrounds of male survivors of urban violence. Researchers conducted in-depth interviews with six men receiving substance abuse treatment while in custody at Cook County jail. All showed symptoms of mental health issues, trauma histories, and/or PTSD. The interviews focused on the men's life stories, traumas they experienced, and their coping mechanisms. Some may assume these men were street savvy, immune to the continuous violence around them and to blame for their circumstances, but the research revealed the men were profoundly negatively affected by their experiences in their homes and neighborhoods. All men said their neighborhoods were dangerous growing up and that crime and gunfire were common. All had been shot at and physically assaulted. Most had been robbed at gunpoint and stabbed. Most had witnessed someone's murder or someone being seriously injured. Three experienced the sudden loss of a family member who was murdered; all thought at least once they would be killed or seriously injured. Trauma occurred early. By the age of five, half of those interviewed had already experienced a traumatic event. Domestic disruption and violence was common - three saw their fathers physically abuse their mothers as children and all were either separated from, or abandoned by, a parent. Half of the interviewees were sexually abused or experienced unwanted sexual contact. Half had periods of homelessness. Two interviewees had been diagnosed with a mental illness, one had attempted suicide, and one had serious physical health issues. Their reactions to traumatic experiences varied. All said they used alcohol or drugs as a way to cope. Five began using drugs and/or alcohol during early adolescence. Four reported nightmares and decreased intimacy or trust in others. Three suffered physical responses to stressful events, including anxiety, cold sweats, and difficulty concentrating. Two noticed impaired relationships with family or friends.

Details: Chicago: Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority, 2015. 44p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 2, 2016 at: http://www.icjia.state.il.us/assets/articles/MALE%20SURVIVORS%20OF%20URBAN%20VIOLENCE%20AND%20TRAUMA%20report%20FINAL.pdf

Year: 2015

Country: United States

URL: http://www.icjia.state.il.us/assets/articles/MALE%20SURVIVORS%20OF%20URBAN%20VIOLENCE%20AND%20TRAUMA%20report%20FINAL.pdf

Shelf Number: 138014

Keywords:
Cycle of Violence
Neighborhoods and Crime
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
Urban Areas and Crime
Violent Crime

Author: Lammy, David

Title: Low Crime for All: How to reduce crime for London's communities

Summary: In a new report for Policy Exchange's London-focused research unit - the Capital City Foundation - Rt Hon David Lammy, Member of Parliament for Tottenham, and candidate in the Primary to be the Labour Party's nominee for the London Mayoral Election, makes the case for higher visibility, more targeted policing in London. In Low Crime for All: How to reduce crime for London's Communities, Lammy makes three key points about crime in London: 1.We need a more visible Police force. The Police must radically improve their visibility in those parts of the capital where crime is highest. Lammy calls for an additional 2,400 Police (1,400 additional constables and 1,000 community support officers) to combat crime in London. The report highlights official figures which show that just 1 in 10 of Metropolitan Police officers are "visible and available" to the public at any one time, the 39th lowest score of the 43 forces in England and Wales. While it is not possible for all Police Officers to be visible and available at any one time there is scope to increase this score. 2.High crime disproportionately hurts the most vulnerable. While crime has declined since it peaked in 1995, this has not occurred equally among all geographic areas and socio-economic groups. Crime is increasingly concentrated in more deprived areas and particularly affects those on low incomes. In London, residents of the 100 wards with the highest proportion of social housing suffer more than twice as much crime as residents of the 100 wards with the least social housing. 3.High rates of crime should not be accepted - crime can be reduced further. The Mayor of London should replicate the sort of approach to fighting crime adopted in New York City, where supposedly 'low level' offences were policed proactively to challenge the culture of criminality and antisocial behaviour. The report makes thirteen recommendations to address crime in London: 1.The Metropolitan Police should increase the percentage of "visible and available" officers. Foot patrols are an important tool in fighting crime. 2.As part of encouraging foot patrols, the Mayor of London should look closely at Metropolitan Police spending on Police cars, and, perhaps, sell some existing vehicles to reinvest in other means of crime prevention. 3.The Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime should attempt randomised controlled trials around London to gather evidence on which policing methods work best. 4.More Police resources should be directly invested in crime hotspots, particularly those areas recently victimised. 5.The Mayor of London should replicate the "Compstat" model in New York. At least once a fortnight, senior officers should go through crime statistics and hold borough commanders to account for any increase in crime rates or decrease in Police effectiveness. 6.The Mayor of London, Transport for London and MOPAC should sustain a particular focus on crime on public transport. 7.London local authorities should insist that new home developments incorporate "designing out crime" principles as part of the planning process. 8.The Mayor of London's environmental team should put the "greening of London" at its core, with a view to placing trees, bushes and hedges in the way of known areas of criminal activity. 9.Tenants should have the right to request that their landlord install WIDE - Window locks, Internal lights on a timer, Deadlocks or Double door locks and External lights activated by a motion sensor - target hardening measures in their home. Landlords should be obliged to do this following any tenant's victimisation. 10.The Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime could trial investing some of its budget in crime prevention by directly funding WIDE installation in the areas most consistently burgled as one of the randomised controlled trials mentioned in recommendation three. 11.As part of MOPAC's randomised controlled trials, the Metropolitan Police should roll out new technologies in some of the highest crime areas, comparing the results to areas of similar crime rates. The deployment of Smartwater shows how this can work in practice. 12.The Mayor of London should work to ensure social housing providers offer optional and low cost home contents insurance to their tenants. 13.The Metropolitan Police should offer subsidised housing in land it owns for rent or purchase by officers to encourage them to live in London.

Details: London: Policy Exchange, 2015. 31p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed march 5, 2016 at: http://www.policyexchange.org.uk/images/publications/low%20crime%20for%20all%20-%20how%20to%20reduce%20crime%20fo%20londons%20communities.pdf

Year: 2015

Country: United Kingdom

URL: http://www.policyexchange.org.uk/images/publications/low%20crime%20for%20all%20-%20how%20to%20reduce%20crime%20fo%20londons%20communities.pdf

Shelf Number: 138107

Keywords:
Communities and Crime
Crime Hotspots
Foot Patrols
Hotspots Policing
Targeting Policing
Urban Areas and Crime

Author: Carter, Rebecca L.

Title: The Blessed Placemakers: Violent Crime, Moral Transformation, and Urban Redevelopment in Post-Katrina New Orleans.

Summary: This doctoral dissertation is an ethnographic and social-geographic examination of peacemaking and placemaking in the urban delta. It traces the ways in which people dwell within unsettled and liminal places at the edge or margin of change, working to creatively remake their lives and worlds despite persistent conditions of vulnerability and loss. Based on two years of comparative fieldwork in New Orleans, it reveals the challenges, ways of being, and transformations that emerge in the aftermath of disaster, in the midst of recovery and redevelopment, and in response to ongoing social problems, particularly the impact of urban violence. While violent crime has long been a problem in New Orleans, it has particular significance in the post-disaster setting. People are asking: How do we stop the violence and reclaim our lives and city? And in particular, what are the values - moral, ethical, religious and other - that should carry us forward? The dissertation follows four local moral and religious communities who address these questions, immersed in active and embodied processes of healing and reform for self, community, city, and society. Case studies include a Catholic "peace prayer" group praying for an end to violence and the moral conversion of non-believers; practitioners of Haitian Vodou conducting "anticrime ceremonies" in targeted city neighborhoods; a Baptist church leading anti-violence and grief recovery ministries; and an Episcopal social justice ministry focused on the restoration of humanity for all victims of violence. Their rich narratives demonstrate that peacemaking and placemaking are driven by the acquisition, application, and promotion of distinct moral and religious bodies of knowledge. Expanding on existing investigations of moral geographies and forms of indigenous 'wisdom,' therefore, the research finds that it is through these site-specific forms of urban 'wisdom' that residents work to reconcile the past while refashioning the present and future. Local moralities extend through larger religious and other sheltering institutions to support the growth and promotion of moral and religious frameworks to guide urban redevelopment and reform. The efforts of these groups, including the obstacles they face, reveal the complexity of moral and religious civic engagement, in vulnerable urban settings.

Details: Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan, 2010. 403p.

Source: Internet Resource: Dissertation: Accessed April 13, 2016 at: https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/78861/rlcart_1.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Year: 2010

Country: United States

URL: https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/78861/rlcart_1.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Shelf Number: 138654

Keywords:
Disasters
Religion
Urban Areas and Crime
Urban Violence
Violent Crime

Author: Apraxine, Pierre

Title: Urban Violence and Humanitarian Challenges

Summary: This second colloquium organised jointly by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS) aimed to present the causes and humanitarian consequences of urban violence, as well as related trends and challenges for the European Union and humanitarian actors. Two case studies have been selected, focusing on different types of violence affecting urban environments. The first case study examines pilot projects to address humanitarian needs arising from organised crime and gang violence in megacities; the second is an analysis of the humanitarian challenges emerging from urban violence in the context of uprisings, referring specifically to the lessons learned from the protests in the Arab world. Urban violence represents numerous challenges for policy makers and humanitarian actors alike. Today, more than half of the world's population lives in cities and it appears that urban centres will absorb almost all new population growth in the coming decades. It has therefore become increasingly important to understand the dynamics of violence in an urban setting. By bringing together experts, academics and representatives from various relief organisations, the ICRC and the EUISS hope to have contributed to the debate and spurred further interest in this increasingly important issue. The present publication includes summaries of both the presentations provided by the speakers and the discussions held during the colloquium.

Details: Paris: EU Institute for Security Studies, 2012. 88p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed May 16, 2016 at: http://www.iss.europa.eu/uploads/media/Urban_violence_and_humanitarian_challenges.pdf

Year: 2012

Country: Europe

URL: http://www.iss.europa.eu/uploads/media/Urban_violence_and_humanitarian_challenges.pdf

Shelf Number: 125774

Keywords:
Gang Violence
Neighborhoods and Crime
Organized Crime
Public Disorder
Urban Areas and Crime
Urban Violence

Author: Deniz, Deniz

Title: Secure Urban Environments by Design: Analysis of Konak Square Design through "Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED)" Principles

Summary: Better design can play a crucial role for reducing crime and creating secure urban environments. In this regard, planners and designers have begun to acknowledge the importance of Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED). However, unlike foreign countries, crime prevention through planning and design context has not been considered and integrated with the planning and design studies in Turkey. This study is aimed to fill this vital gap. Therefore, the main purpose of the study is to examine the relationships between crime (as well as fear of crime) and the spatial built environment. To do that, as one of the recently redesigned public space of zmir, Konak Square Design has been analysed through CPTED principles. In that case, a comparison of recent design of Konak Square and CPTED principles are carried out. Then, if design features of the square complies with CPTED principles or not, found out. Finally, additional recommendations are made that have not been covered by existing CPTED principles to improve security considerations of public places. For this purpose, interviews have been conducted with the zmir Police Department and also the official crime records of the area have been obtained from them. Besides using cross-correlation technique, systematic observations and questionnaires have been used as research methods of this study. Consequently, this particular study did find support for the causal relationships between the occurrence of crime or feelings of insecurity and characteristics of the spatial built environments. Therefore, the study has emphasized that, planning and design issues should be considered carefully in order to create safer and livable public spaces

Details: Izmir: Izmir Institute of Technology, 2007. 198p.

Source: Internet Resource: Dissertation: Accessed July 11, 2016 at: http://library.iyte.edu.tr/tezler/doktora/sehirplanlama/T000615.pdf

Year: 2007

Country: Turkey

URL: http://library.iyte.edu.tr/tezler/doktora/sehirplanlama/T000615.pdf

Shelf Number: 139506

Keywords:
Built Environment
CPTED
Crime Prevention
Design Against Crime
Urban Areas and Crime

Author: International Centre for the Prevention of Crime (ICPC)

Title: Crime Prevention and Community Safety: Cities and the New Urban Agenda. 5th International Report

Summary: The fifth edition of the International Report on Crime Prevention and Community Safety develops, from the urban perspective, various topics relevant to the current context in cities. As with previous editions of the Report, the first chapter is a constant of ICPC's International Reports, reviewing major trends in crime and in its prevention. The following two chapters address the relationship between the urban setting and the prevention of crime through two distinct lenses: the first gives a general overview of the issues and major trends facing cities; the second, in contrast, offers a comparative perspective, particularly in relation to national-local relationships in the Latin American context. The final three chapters address three fundamental topics on the prevention of urban crime: public transport, the prevention of drug-related crime, and the prevention of violent radicalization.

Details: Ottawa: ICPC, 2016. 204p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed October 19, 2016 at: http://www.crime-prevention-intl.org/fileadmin/user_upload/Publications/International_Report/CIPC_5th-IR_EN_17oct_Final.pdf

Year: 2016

Country: International

URL: http://www.crime-prevention-intl.org/fileadmin/user_upload/Publications/International_Report/CIPC_5th-IR_EN_17oct_Final.pdf

Shelf Number: 145994

Keywords:
Crime Prevention
Drug-Related Violence
Extremist Groups
Public Transport
Radical Groups
Radicalization
Urban Areas and Crime

Author: Everytown for Gun Safety

Title: Strategies for Reducing Gun Violence in American Cities

Summary: Urban gun violence touches on issues central to American life: safety, equality, opportunity, and community. As thousands of city residents are killed or injured with guns each year, mayors and other community leaders face an urgent challenge: finding effective solutions and implementing them to make a difference now and into the future. This report, a collaboration between Everytown for Gun Safety, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, and the National Urban League, is a tool for all city leaders who want to reduce gun violence. First, the report summarizes much of what is known about urban gun violence: its causes, the ways it differs from violence in other settings, and the ways it undercuts many other aspects of city life. It is not the intent of this report to explain all the variation in gun violence across cities; instead, it is a primer for cities that want to act today, in spite of uncertainty. Far from presenting novel ideas, it brings together the knowledge of academic researchers, community activists, nonprofit leaders, and civil servants who have been addressing gun violence in cities for decades. Second, the report describes seven strategies that dozens of cities have taken to reduce gun violence in their communities, drawing on specific case studies. The identified interventions address factors known to contribute to urban gun violence, are supported by a growing body of evidence, and can each be a part of any city's larger strategy for reducing gun violence. This is not a comprehensive account of the hard work taking place in communities across the country, the volume of which is impossible to capture, but these case studies demonstrate that cities can learn from one another, building on successes, and informed by a growing body of evidence.

Details: New York: Everytown for Gun Safety, 2016. 72p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed November 10, 2016 at: http://everytownresearch.org/documents/2016/06/strategies-reducing-gun-violence-american-cities.pdf

Year: 2016

Country: United States

URL: http://everytownresearch.org/documents/2016/06/strategies-reducing-gun-violence-american-cities.pdf

Shelf Number: 148906

Keywords:
Crime Prevention
Gun Violence
Gun-Related Violence
Homicides
Urban Areas and Crime
Violent Crime

Author: Braga, Anthony A.

Title: The Police and Public Discourse on "Black-on-Black" Violence

Summary: Research has long documented that most violence occurs within racial groups and that black Americans - often victimized by black offenders - experience disproportionately high levels of violent crime. The authors argue that the term "black-on-black" violence, while statistically correct, is a simplistic and emotionally-charged definition of urban violence that can be problematic when used by political commentators, politicians, and police executives. Because the police represent the most visible face of government and have primary responsibility for maintaining public safety in all neighborhoods, Braga and Brunson contend that police executives in particular should avoid framing urban violence problems in this way.

Details: Cambridge, MA: Harvard Kennedy School, Program on Criminal Justice Policy and Management, 2015. 24p.

Source: Internet Resource: New Perspectives in Policing: Accessed November 14, 2016 at: http://www.nccpsafety.org/assets/files/library/The_Police_and_Public_Discourse_on_Black-on-Black_Violence.pdf

Year: 2015

Country: United States

URL: http://www.nccpsafety.org/assets/files/library/The_Police_and_Public_Discourse_on_Black-on-Black_Violence.pdf

Shelf Number: 146645

Keywords:
Minorities and Crime
Urban Areas and Crime
Urban Crime
Urban Violence
Violent Crime

Author: Mackay, Lesley

Title: Evaluation of the Regeneration of Hulme, Manchester

Summary: Hulme has a disheartening past in terms of housing and development with a number of attempts to clear and re-develop it over the 20th century. This development culminated in the building in the 1960s of the now infamous yet architectural-award winning Crescents, deck-access blocks of dwellings and 13 tower blocks. By the 1980s and early 1990s major problems were becoming evident: "from heating inadequacies to pest infestation and from child safety to symptoms of depression, isolation and ill-health." (Hulme Regeneration Limited 1994) Foreword). The deck access dwellings "are inhuman in scale, forbidding in presence, unsafe and wholly unsuitable for families with children(Manchester City Council 1992 p.4 para. 4.2) and "crime rates are high" (Manchester City Council 1992 p.4 para. 5.1). In the early 1990s Hulme continued to be an area of Greater Manchester which suffered from particularly high levels of deprivation, unemployment and poor housing. The demolition of the deck access blocks (but not the tower blocks) was the start of a programme in 1992 to regenerate Hulme which continues up to the present time. But what impact have these most recent transformation had on Hulme and its residents? Has Hulme become a safer place? Is it sustainable? This case study examines the changes in crime rates and other sustainability objectives identified by the Hulme Guide to Development. Case studies of residential area will be conducted within Manchester, London and Sheffield. While case studies generally focus on city centre environments and Hulme is located approximately one mile from the centre of Manchester, this residential area is of particular interest. Using a New Urbanist approach, attempts were made to integrate the area with the city centre and create a safer environment. In this sense, the Hulme redevelopment aimed to create the type of open and permeable residential environments required for sustainability, without incurring actual or perceived increases in crime. The Hulme redevelopment is also widely quoted as an example of good practice and potentially influences government policy

Details: Salford, UK: University of Salford, 2006. 51p.

Source: Internet Resource: VIVACITY 2020: Work Package 3: Secure Urban Environments by Design, Case Study 2: Housing: Accessed November 15, 2016 at: www.vivacity2020.co.uk

Year: 2006

Country: United Kingdom

URL: www.vivacity2020.co.uk

Shelf Number: 145895

Keywords:
Crime Prevention
Design Against Crime
Housing Design
Urban Areas and Crime

Author: Olarte Bacares, Carlos Augusto

Title: Impact of urban public transport enhancements on crime rate: a diff-diff analysis for the case of Transmilenio

Summary: One of the biggest questions of agglomerations today focuses on the problem of the public transport supply. To deal with this, Bogota has developed a new urban transport system that has had worldwide recognition since 2000: Transmilenio. While most studies have focused on studying the impact of this new public transport system with respect to the environment, hedonic prices, employment and urbanism, among others, none (except one) have studied the question of the evolution of crime linked to the existence of Transmilenio. The aim of this article is to demonstrate that the evolution of urban transport, which is traduced on the construction and on the improvements of Transmilenio, has had a direct impact on the crime rates in the city. By collecting a set of spatially referenced data regarding crimes in 112 of the 117 planning zones that make up the city, this research follows a differences-in-differences methodology to test the causality of the transport system in the evolution of crime rates in each zone for different periods. After a deep descriptive analysis of data and the implementation of the econometric methodology suggested, results indicate that enhancement of the public transport system has had no clear impact on crime rates in all zones of the city. Depending on the zones and on the Transmilenio line in question, the transport system may increase or decrease the number of crimes on each zone beneficiaries or not from the improvement of the system. However, this research gives a non-negligible number of hints to take in consideration on further studies.

Details: Paris: University of Paris, Centre for Economics, 2013. 23p.

Source: Internet Resorure: MPRA Paper No. 53967: Accessed December 8, 2016 at: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/53967/1/MPRA_paper_53967.pdf

Year: 2013

Country: France

URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/53967/1/MPRA_paper_53967.pdf

Shelf Number: 140353

Keywords:
Transit Crime
Transit Safety
Transportation and Crime
Urban Areas and Crime
Urban Crime

Author: Kabia, Victor Sylvester

Title: The Relationship Between Increased Police Patrols and Violent Crime Rates in Seven United States Cities

Summary: Large, metropolitan areas across the nation have experienced high rates of violent crime over the past 2 decades. As a consequence, law enforcement agencies have increased patrol efforts, but little is known about whether the decrease in violent crime rates was correlated to increased police patrols or to the economic variables of unemployment, inflation, level of education, unemployment compensation, and home-ownership. The purpose of this non-experimental, correlational study was to examine the nature of the relationship between increased police patrols, the 5 economic variables, and violent crime rates in 7 large US cities for a 10-year period. The theoretical framework for this study was based on Paternoster's deterrence theory and Becker's economic theory of crime causation. Data were acquired from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and used a sample of 114 cases of reported violent crimes for each city included in the study for the years 2000 – 2010 (n = 798). A multiple regression analysis was initially performed with inconclusive results. Spearman's correlations between each of the independent and dependent variables of violent crime indicated that all the independent variables except for home-ownership had statistically significant inverse correlations with violent crime rates. The findings of this study may be used by law enforcement agencies and policy makers to develop crime prevention interventions that address those economic factors associated with violent crime, thereby promoting positive social change through creating safer communities.

Details: Minneapolis, MN: Walden University, 2016. 156p.

Source: Internet Resource: Dissertation: Accessed December 10, 2016 at: http://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3420&context=dissertations

Year: 2016

Country: United States

URL: http://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3420&context=dissertations

Shelf Number: 146044

Keywords:
Communities and Crime
Crime Rates
Police Effectiveness
Police Patrols
Socioeconomic conditions and Crime
Urban Areas and Crime
Violent Crime

Author: Grace, Anita

Title: Organized Urban Violence: An Examination of the Threat of Organized Armed Groups to Urban Environments

Summary: This research contributes to the assessment of urban violence by developing a category of urban violence, namely organized urban violence (OUV), defined as that which is generated by urban non-state organized armed groups (OAGs) who exert territorial and social control in urban areas. Through detailed examination of academic and policy literature, this thesis explores the types of non-state OAGs involved in urban violence – such as private security companies (PSCs), vigilantes, gangs, and organized crime groups – their characteristics and their impacts on urban environments. The category of OUV is further developed through two case studies: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and Cape Town, South Africa – cities which have a proliferation of urban non-state OAGs and high levels of urban violence.

Details: Ottawa: Saint Paul University, 2011. 158p.

Source: Internet Resource: Thesis: Accessed December 23, 2016 at: https://www.ruor.uottawa.ca/handle/10393/20009

Year: 2011

Country: International

URL: https://www.ruor.uottawa.ca/handle/10393/20009

Shelf Number: 147787

Keywords:
Gang-Related Violence
Neighborhoods and Crime
Organized Crime
Urban Areas and Crime
Violence

Author: Sierra-Arevalo, Michael

Title: Legal cynicism and protective gun ownership among active offenders in Chicago

Summary: Most American gun owners report having their firearms for protection. However, these national estimates are likely to under-sample residents of marginalized urban communities where rates of violent victimization, and presumably the need for personal protection, are more pronounced. Further, this under-sampling limits our understanding of motivations for gun ownership within the "hidden" group of active criminal offenders that are more likely to be both victims and offenders of street crime. Drawing on past work linking neighborhood violence to legal cynicism, and using data gathered by the Chicago Gun Project (CGP), I employ measures of police legitimacy to explore the effect of distrust of legal agents on protective gun ownership among active offenders in Chicago. These data confirm that lower levels of police legitimacy are significantly related to a higher probability of acquiring a firearm for protection. I consider the ways that gang membership, legal changes in Chicago, and gun behaviors are related to protective gun ownership, as well as how community policing and procedural justice can improve perceptions of police and enhance their legitimacy, potentially reducing the incentives to engage in violent, extralegal "self-help" with a firearm.

Details: New Haven, CT: Yale University, Institution for Social and Policy Studies, 2016. 21p.

Source: Internet Resource: Cogent Social Sciences 2: 1227293: Accessed December 23, 2016 at: http://isps.yale.edu/sites/default/files/publication/2016/09/cogentsocialsciences_2016_sierra-arevalo_legal_cynicism_and_protective_gun_ownership_among_active_offenders_in_chicago.pdf

Year: 2016

Country: United States

URL: http://isps.yale.edu/sites/default/files/publication/2016/09/cogentsocialsciences_2016_sierra-arevalo_legal_cynicism_and_protective_gun_ownership_among_active_offenders_in_chicago.pdf

Shelf Number: 146155

Keywords:
Gun Ownership
Gun-Related Violence
Police Legitimacy
Urban Areas and Crime
Violent Crime

Author: Kelly, Robin L.

Title: Kelly Report 2014: Gun Violence in America

Summary: Whether you live in America's inner cities, in a suburban neighborhood or in the heartland, your community is vulnerable to gun violence. It could be a gang crime, a gun accident or a suicide. Regardless of the cause, all acts of gun violence are abhorrent and demand policy solutions and community action to stop them. Gun violence has killed more Americans in the past 50 years than in every single American - from George Washington's Colonial Army defeat of the British in 1781 to Operation Enduring Freedom in 2014. Every year, more than 100,000 people are shot in America -more than 30,000 of them fatally. Over half of these fatal shootings are of young people under the age of 30. Since the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, there have been more than 50 school shootings across the country - almost three a month. With an average of one young American under the age of 25 being killed by a gun every hour, the very security of our next generation is at risk. Likewise, economic research suggests that gun violence threatens our nation's fiscal well-being. In violent communities, economic opportunities wither, stable families relocate and children often fail to realize their true academic and economic potential. Each homicide in a city is estimated to reduce that city's population by 70 residents. A ten-year study of the city of Chicago found that each gun homicide equates to $2,500 in lost annual income for Chicago families. For example, each child who is a fatal victim of gun violence is one less person who will become a wage earner and taxpayer. Additionally, every criminal poses a direct cost to taxpayers. For example, a 20-year-old serving a life sentence costs taxpayers $2 million over the course of their incarceration. Given this context, communities undeniably stand to gain from a comprehensive examination of the gun violence issue. This report promotes a common sense approach to reducing gun deaths in America. As you consider the following content, you should keep in mind:

Details: Washington, DC: Office of Congresswoman Robin L. Kelly, 2014. 66p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed February 13, 2017 at: https://robinkelly.house.gov/sites/robinkelly.house.gov/files/wysiwyg_uploaded/KellyReport_1.pdf

Year: 2014

Country: United States

URL: https://robinkelly.house.gov/sites/robinkelly.house.gov/files/wysiwyg_uploaded/KellyReport_1.pdf

Shelf Number: 145126

Keywords:
Crime Prevention
Gun Violence
Gun-Related Violence
Homicides
Urban Areas and Crime
Violent Crime

Author: Shaw, Mark

Title: Governing Safer Cities: Strategies for a Globalised World. A Framework to Guide Urban Policy-Makers and Practioners

Summary: The security challenges of individual cities are increasingly a result of the intersection between local vulnerabilities and illicit flows from across national borders. States as a whole are affected by the destabilising effects of these flows of illicit commodities and the associated challenges of organised crime, corruption and terrorism. These phenomena are undercutting good governance and the rule of law, threatening security, development and peoples' life chances. But with two-thirds of the current world population expected to reside in cities by 2030, these challenges are and will continue to be particularly acute in cities across the globe. As the UNODC Global Study on Homicide (2011 and 2013) has shown, many urban areas have higher rates of homicide - a useful proxy for levels of violence more generally - than the national average; cities being the source of both greater levels of risk as well as opportunities for crime prevention and responses. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (Goal 16) recognises that reducing conflict, crime, violence, discrimination, and ensuring the rule of law, inclusion and good governance, are key elements of people's well-being and essential for securing sustainable development. The 2030 Agenda also explicitly highlights the promotion of safe, inclusive and resilient cities (Goal 11). This must be achieved through equitable development, safeguarded by fair, humane and effective crime prevention and criminal justice systems as a central component of the rule of law. The Sustainable Development Goals and the New Urban Agenda adopted during Habitat III in Quito, provide a new impetus to the work of countries and the international community at large to develop inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable cities. Although a considerable amount of research has already been carried out in this area, there is a need to clarify how global illicit flows and organised crime impact on local communities, particularly given their rapid evolution in the current context. Building on the work that has already been done in the field of crime prevention and urban safety, as well as drawing from detailed case studies from a number of cities across the world, and the input of a globally representative group of experts, this framework provides policymakers and practitioners with a new approach to safety in cities, taking into account how transnational organised crime and illicit flows exploit and exacerbate local vulnerabilities. It recognises that while many of the responsibilities for providing citizens with security lie with national governments, city administrations do have a key role to play in identifying crime risks and vulnerabilities and ensuring that safety and security policies are tailored to meet local needs, including by involving communities and other relevant non-state actors.

Details: Vienna: United national Office on Drugs and Crime, 2017. 52p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed February 16, 2017 at: https://www.unodc.org/documents/justice-and-prison-reform/SaferCities.pdf

Year: 2016

Country: International

URL: https://www.unodc.org/documents/justice-and-prison-reform/SaferCities.pdf

Shelf Number: 146281

Keywords:
Crime Prevention
Criminal Justice Policy
Urban Areas
Urban Areas and Crime

Author: Price, Megan

Title: Hustling for Security: Managing plural security in Nairobi's poor urban settlements

Summary: Nairobi's urban settlements offer unique settings in which to examine the interplay between citizens' need for security, the state's inability to fully meet that need, and the opportunities this creates for powerful private actors. In Kenya’s capital, this situation has led to a context of plural security provision, in which an array of actors assert claims on the use of force, operating simultaneously and with varying relationships to the state. Despite the proliferation of active security providers, who range from opportunistic enforcers to tireless local guardians, most people in Nairobi’s poor urban settlements are exposed to daily threats on their person and property. Fieldwork in Mathare, Korogocho and Kangemi provided insights into how settlement residents must rely upon their social networks and personal attributes to ensure access to a combination of protective communities. Unable to call upon the state as the guarantor of public welfare, citizens must ‘hustle for security’, using their wits and their networks to assemble a tenuous patchwork of protection. The research identified not only the risks this creates for individuals and communities, but also how the propensity to resort to individualised security strategies can undermine the notion and the actualisation of 'the public good'. The paper concludes with proposals for addressing the more malign aspects of plural security provision, specifically, the need to curtail the providers' power and to work towards consolidating various providers under uniform rubrics of oversight and performance standards. The paper contributes to a comparative research project on plural security in urban settings that draws upon empirical insights from case studies in Beirut, Nairobi, and Tunis.

Details: The Hague: Plural Security Insights Clingendael Conflict Research Unit, 2016. 32p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 3, 2017 at: http://pluralsecurityinsights.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/160707_PSI_Policy-brief_Nairobi.pdf

Year: 2016

Country: Kenya

URL: http://pluralsecurityinsights.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/160707_PSI_Policy-brief_Nairobi.pdf

Shelf Number: 141309

Keywords:
Citizen Patrols
Crime Prevention
Security
Urban Areas and Crime
Vigilantes

Author: Mungin, Douglas

Title: There's a Skid Row Everywhere and This is Just the Headquarters: Impacts of Urban Revitalization Policies in the Homeless Community of Skid Row

Summary: This dissertation tracks the historical shift from containment strategies for managing homeless populations in Skid Row to current strategies of using police and the penal system to periodically sweep the street of these unwanted bodies. This shift hinges on the construction of homelessness as a crisis requiring immediate and ongoing intervention. First, the state produces and reproduces homelessness as a state of crisis by withdrawing or denying support and public services and disallowing alternative, subsistence modes of survival. Then, it issues the performative utterance of the area as unclean or unsanitary. Developers and city officials mobilize the police to erase a visible presence of homeless bodies from the area. The "crisis" of homelessness, variously constructed as an issue of urban aesthetics, public health, and crime, enables public policy to be made on the fly. These policies have uniformly favored economic development at the expense of the needs of homeless persons and communities. The performative state needs the homeless to legitimate state intervention on behalf of developers. In this dissertation, I demonstrate how the racialized rhetorics of thanatology and revitalization have been used to construct homelessness as a crisis for the city in a manner that positions the homeless as threats to the life of the city. According to this rhetoric, it is cities that have economic vitality worth protecting and homeless people who act as an unwanted and degenerate economic species threatening their financial fitness, health, and well-being. I argue that the performative state produces homelessness as a material state of crisis and rhetorically constructs homelessness as a crisis legitimating intervention on the part of the state. The dissertation is organized according to the various ways in which homelessness has been constructed as a crisis warranting intervention: urban aesthetics, homelessness and practices of poverty as an eyesore (Chapter 2), public safety and crime prevention à la the broken windows theory (Chapter 3), and the economic vitality of the international city (Chapter 4). This dissertation seeks to explore the stakes across various constructions of the existence of the homeless population and their practices of poverty.

Details: Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University, 2016. 250p.

Source: Internet Resource: Dissertation: Accessed March 7, 2017 at: http://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2692&context=gradschool_dissertations

Year: 2016

Country: United States

URL: http://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2692&context=gradschool_dissertations

Shelf Number: 141370

Keywords:
Homeless Persons
Homelessness
Poverty
Skid Row
Urban Areas and Crime

Author: Olson, Eric L.

Title: Improving Citizen Security in the Americas: Why Taking an Urban Approach is Warranted

Summary: The urbanization of the world's population has been underway for many decades. In Latin America, over 75 percent of the population lives in cities, and this number is expected to reach approximately 90 percent by 2050 (Muggah 2014, 351). With urbanization has come a wide variety of challenges, including water and sanitation; urban planning and transportation; housing, education, and healthcare; and environmental concerns. It is not surprising, then, that cities and metropolitan areas also experience special challenges with crime and public security. This is especially the case in Latin America, a region that faces some of the highest rates of urban violence in the world (Muggah 2014, 351). According to one analysis, Latin America contains 43 of the world's 50 most violent cities (CCSPJP 2015). The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) produces one of the most widely cited sources of information on homicides worldwide. While the UNODC offers data about urban homicide rates, most of the public debate centers around national-level figures expressed in terms of deaths per 100,000. In 2016, for example, El Salvador was reported as the country with the highest homicide rate-an alarming 81.2 homicides per 100,000 (Gagne 2017). At the regional level, Latin America also fared poorly: a UNODC report on global homicide stated that the Central and South American sub-regions experienced the second and third highest homicide levels, preceded only by Southern Africa (UNODC 2013). According to a criminality index generated by security consulting firm Verisk Maplecroft, five of the ten countries with the highest risk for criminal violence are in Latin America: Guatemala, Mexico, Honduras, Venezuela, and El Salvador. National and regional levels of homicide and crime, however, can actually paint a misleading picture of security at the local level. Many specific areas in the region, especially urban areas, experience rates of violence much higher (or lower) than average. For this reason, stemming urban violence at the local level and addressing the underlying factors driving this phenomenon has been an increasingly important policy concern for Latin American governments, the international donor community, and U.S. policymakers in particular. Security is a main concern for the public as well: in 2014, one out of every three adults in the Americas reported that crime, insecurity, or violence was the main problem facing their country (Zeichmeister 2014). In this paper, we seek to summarize some of the principal characteristics and drivers of urban violence in order to develop more targeted and effective policies to address it. First, we discuss how major structural problems like youth unemployment and inequality are related to common crime, organized crime, and violence. We emphasize the importance of understanding the local nature of urban violence and its tendency to occur and persist in specific geographic locations. Next, we look at some examples from the region that shed light on, and in some cases, confirm these ideas. Finally, we offer a series of policy options for addressing one of the region's most persistent and vexing challenges

Details: Washington, DC: Wilson Center, Latin American Program, 2017. 15p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed April 6, 2017 at: https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/citizen_security_policy_brief_final.pdf

Year: 2017

Country: Latin America

URL: https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/citizen_security_policy_brief_final.pdf

Shelf Number: 144739

Keywords:
Citizen Security
Homicide
Neighborhoods and Crime
Urban Areas and Crime
Urban Violence
Violent Crime

Author: Carriazo, Fernando

Title: Arborizacion Y Crimen Urbano En Bogota (Trees and Urban Crime in Bogota)

Summary: The relationship between vegetation and crime has been the subject of recent research among urban scholars. Using data for developed countries, the literature recognizes that vegetation has a positive effect on human health but it states that it may be positively related to certain type of criminal activities. This study is the first effort to quantify the relationship between planting trees and thefts in an emerging country. Based on census and geo-referenced data of trees in Bogot� (Colombia), it is possible to establish that the process of afforestation has a positive effect on the criminality of the city. Specifically, spatial econometric techniques show that the act of planting trees has a negative effect on theft.

Details: Bogota: Economics Department at Los Andes University, 2016. 27p.

Source: Internet Resource: Documento CEDE No. 2016-37: Accessed May 10, 2017 at: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2940428 (Full report available in Spanish)

Year: 2016

Country: Colombia

URL: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2940428

Shelf Number: 135402

Keywords:
Environmental Criminology
Urban Areas and Crime
Urban Crime
Vegetation

Author: Quevedo, Jennifer

Title: Are Gang Injunctions a Tool for Gentrification? The Case of the Glendale Corridor Gang Injunction

Summary: My research aims to understand the connections between police practices, court decisions, and gentrification, and focuses on the Glendale Corridor Gang Injunction. The injunction encompasses both the Silver Lake and Echo Park community, but mostly is in the Echo Park neighborhood. Echo Park is a community in LA that has undergone significant demographic changes in the past ten years. Local organizers and residents repeatedly questioned the function of the injunction in an area where crime has been decreasing and the neighborhood is increasingly attracting young white professionals. Indeed, residents critiquing the injunction are also addressing the tension arising from gentrification and the displacement of low-income communities of color across Los Angeles, like many other cities in the U.S. Through both qualitative interviews and statistical analyses I investigate the motivations for pursuing the Glendale Corridor Injunction, the connection between the injunction and demographic changes, and the effects the injunction has for people on the ground. The research leads to a conclusion that while gang injunctions are not motivated primarily by gentrification, the fear of displacement and over policing communities of color is not mutually exclusive. Both gentrification and gang injunctions have negative impacts on community member's sense of belonging in their own community.

Details: Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2016. 67p.

Source: Internet Resource: Thesis: Accessed May 24, 2017 at: https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/105056/959718269-MIT.pdf?sequence=1

Year: 2016

Country: United States

URL: https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/105056/959718269-MIT.pdf?sequence=1

Shelf Number: 145761

Keywords:
Gang Injunctions
Gang Prevention
Gangs
Neighborhoods and Crime
Urban Areas and Crime

Author: Martinez, Denis Roberto

Title: Youth under the Gun: Violence, Fear, and Resistance in Urban Guatemala

Summary: This study examines how violence affects youth in marginalized urban communities, focusing on the experiences of three groups of young people: gang members, activists, and the "jovenes encerrados", youth who live confined to their homes due to fear. Based on 14 months of ethnographic research in El Mezquital, an extensive marginalized urban area in Guatemala City, I explore the socio-economic conditions that trigger violence in these communities, the responses of young people and the community to violence, and the State's role in exacerbating violence in impoverished neighborhoods. In this dissertation I argue that gang members and activists are expressing a deep-seated social discontent against the exclusion, humiliation, and social stigmatization faced by young people in marginalized urban neighborhoods. However, the two groups express their discontent in significantly different ways. Initially, gangs used violence to express their discontent, but they gradually resorted to a perverse game of crime, in complicity with the police, and they distanced themselves from their own communities; in this work I analyze gangs' process of transformation and the circumstances that led to this change. Activists express their discontent through community art and public protest, but their demonstrations have limited social impact, since public attention continues to focus on gangs; here I examine activists' motivations, struggles, and obstacles. However, the vast majority of young people live in a state of fear, preferring to keep quiet and withdraw into their homes; here I show how violence, fear, and distrust affect the generation born into postwar Guatemala. This study illustrates the perverse role of the State in impoverished urban neighborhoods and its responsibility for the escalation of urban violence in Guatemala. On the one hand, the State shuns residents from these neighborhoods and systematically denies them basic services; it criminalizes and abuses young people, even forming social cleansing groups to eliminate gang members. On the other hand, the State fosters crime in these communities and acts as gangs' accomplice in extortions, drug trade, and robberies. As in many other Latin American countries, the Guatemalan State penalizes crime, but simultaneously encourages and benefits from it; the State is complicit in crime.

Details: Austin, TX: University of Texas at Austin, 2014. 263p.

Source: Internet Resource: Dissertation: Accessed May 27, 2017 at: https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/bitstream/handle/2152/28318/MARTINEZ-DISSERTATION-2014.pdf?sequence=1

Year: 2014

Country: Guatemala

URL: https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/bitstream/handle/2152/28318/MARTINEZ-DISSERTATION-2014.pdf?sequence=1

Shelf Number: 145831

Keywords:
Fear of Crime
Gang-Related Violence
Gangs
Neighborhoods and Crime
Poverty
Socioeconomic conditions and Crime
Urban Areas and Crime
Violence
Violent Crime

Author: Musoi, Kyalo

Title: A Study of Crime in Urban Slums in Kenya: The Case of Kibra, Bondeni, Manyatta and Mishomoroni Slums

Summary: Crime continues to be a major scar on the peace and security landscape in Kenya. Whereas crime cuts across the country geographically, it is more prevalent, severe and acute in peri-urban informal settlement areas that are popularly known as slums. Security Research and Information Centre (SRIC), with support from the Government of Kenya (through the National Steering Committee on Peace Building and Conflict Management and the Kenya National Focal Point on Small Arms and Light Weapons) and UNDP Kenya has been conducting crime surveys - in its strategic role as a crime observatory - since 2011 in the greater Nairobi region and other select parts of the country. These crime surveys have consistently established that crime is a major peace and security concern in the major urban areas in the country particularly in the slums. It is against this backdrop that SRIC undertook a study on crime in four select slums in the four major cities in the country namely, Kibra (Nairobi), Mishomoroni (Mombasa), Manyatta (Kisumu) and Bondeni (Nakuru). For the purpose of this study, crime is understood to mean acts or prohibitions which are against the law (both written and unwritten for the case of societal norms). The main objective of the study was to contribute to better understanding of the nature, trends and dynamics of crimes in the four select major urban slums in Kenya and to formulate actionable policy recommendations. The study also sought to identify and analyse crime hot spots, criminal organized groups and impact of crime in the select slum areas. The findings of the study can thus be extrapolated to present a general crime status in the slum areas in the country as a whole. Various methods of data collection and analysis were used. Secondary data was mainly derived from previous studies and reports on crime and crime observatories including print media. Primary data was collected through questionnaires, interviews and observations. A total of 654 questionnaires were administered to members of the public in the study areas taking into consideration age and gender sensitivities. In addition, 48 key informant interviews were conducted. The researchers also spend considerable time during the study period in the study areas observing crime trends and patterns. The study used both quantitative and qualitative methods of data analysis. The quantitative data was organized, cleaned, coded and analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) to help generate summaries in terms of tables and graphs for easy analysis and interpretation. Qualitative data was analyzed qualitatively through interpretation of the responses by respondents and also analysis of secondary data on the subject matter. The study found that theft (35.37%), was the main type of crime across the four sampled slum areas. In addition, robbery (15.55%), burglary/break-ins (10.67%) and mugging (23.17%) were the other main typologies of crime in slum areas, accounting for combined 84.76% of crimes committed in slum areas in Kenya. The study also established that an overwhelming majority, 98.8% of the respondents, had witnessed crime being committed in the last three months of the study period. This can be inferred to mean that almost everyone in the four slums had either been affected (may be within the family) or personally experienced some form of crime. Asked to state causes of crime in slum areas in urban centres, 61.2% of the respondents cited youth unemployment as the main cause of crime. Poverty (11.3%) and illicit brews/drug abuse (9.5%) were cited as the other causes of crime in slum areas. Based on these statistics, it can be inferred that rampant poverty and depressed income levels seem to be the primary drivers of localized crimes in major urban slums in Kenya. Contrary to assertions by many researchers and reports that Kibra is the most unsafe area to live in, public perceptions on safety in this study demonstrate that comparatively, Bondeni slum in Nakuru town was the most unsafe place to live in (60.98%) followed by Mishomoroni in Mombasa (44.44%). Kibra was third with 40% and lastly Manyatta slum in Kisumu where only 36.9% of respondents felt the slum was unsafe to live in. Moreover, it was only in Manyatta slums that respondents felt very safe (7.14%), making it to be, in relative terms, the safest of the four slums. In terms of reporting crime to the authorities the study established that 53.21% of the respondents had reported crime to the police while 46.79% of the respondents did not report crime to the police at all. 42.2% of the respondents indicated that they had no confidence in administration of justice by the Police Service and that's why they would rather let the matter (crime) "die" than seek intervention from the police. 14.7% of the respondents indicated that they were afraid of the perpetrators, 18.7% indicated that sometimes they would not report any crime incident perpetrated or involving any member of the family/ friends, 9.2% indicated that some criminal cases were not serious enough to warrant the attention of the police, 7.3% posited that the police were not friendly and were thus afraid of approaching them while others indicated reporting was inconsequential since the police were incapable of recovering lost properties in cases of property related crimes. In addition and despite the efforts expended by the government, NGOs and the communities themselves to prevent and reduce crime in urban slum areas in the country, a majority of respondents (81%) felt that crime incidences remained high. Only 17% of the total respondents indicated that crime levels had reduced. The study also identified 21 organized criminal groups and or gangs operating in the slum areas. Kibra had 6, Mishomoroni in Mombasa 8, Bondeni of Nakuru 8 whereas Manyatta respondents in Kisumu identified 4 such groups. Extortions, levying of protection fees, muggings, heckling/disrupting political rallies and events, trafficking drugs and kidnappings are some of the common crimes committed by these identified criminal groups/gangs. It is also important to note that in Mishomoroni, Mombasa Republican Council (MRC) was not identified as a criminal organization or group. Maybe the respondents feared mentioning it or perceived it as a legitimate organization pursuing interests of the coastal people. In addition, the study identified 44 crime hotspots and times of the day the crime is likely to take place or committed. Kibra, had the highest number of hotspots at 17. This was followed by Mishomoroni (11), Manyatta (9) and Bondeni (7) in that order. It is interesting to note that based on public perceptions, Bondeni - with only 7 identified crime hotspots - was found to be the most unsafe slum amongst the four sampled slum areas. To ameliorate the dire crime situation in slum areas in the country, the study makes key policy recommendations to the National Police Service, National Government, County Governments and the members of the public. To the Police Service, the police reforms should be hastened so that corruption is reduced and accountability enhanced. In addition, the police should intensify patrols within the settlements, strengthen witness/informers protection services/ unit and equip the police officers with the necessary tools to enable them perform their work effectively. The National Government should address youth unemployment by increasing the uptake of grants such as Uwezo Fund and also ensure proper mechanisms are put in place, including subsidizing the prices of basic commodities, in order to lower the cost of living. On the other hand, the County Governments should improve infrastructure in slum areas such as erecting lighting masts and improving access roads. The public has a role to play in making slum areas safer places to live in. They should step up collaboration with police officers in detecting and reporting crime as well as avoid buying or trading in stolen properties. Buying stolen goods encourages the criminals to continue stealing.

Details: Nairobi: Security Research & Information Centre, 2014. 72p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed June 5, 2017 at: http://www.srickenya.org/images/publications/slum%20Crime%20Survey%20Report.%20Thur.pdf

Year: 2014

Country: Kenya

URL: http://www.srickenya.org/images/publications/slum%20Crime%20Survey%20Report.%20Thur.pdf

Shelf Number: 145909

Keywords:
Crime Statistics
Poverty
Slums
Socioeconomic Conditions and Crime
Stolen Goods
Theft
Urban Areas and Crime

Author: Turley, Ruth

Title: Slum upgrading strategies and their effects on health and socio-economic outcomes: a systematic review

Summary: Low and middle income countries (LMIC) are home to over 90% of the one billion people living in slums. Urban slums describe parts of cities where living conditions are exceptionally poor. The slums lack basic services and often have many people crowded into small living spaces. Slums can provide shelter and proximity to jobs, and communities are often social and supportive. However, poor living conditions and health are closely related, and illnesses such as diarrhoea, malaria, cholera and respiratory diseases are common. Slum upgrading basically involves improving the physical environment, for example the water supply, sanitation, waste collection, electricity, drainage, road paving and street lighting. Additional strategies may be included to improve access to health, education and social services, increase residents' income and secure legal rights to the land. We found five main studies with suitable methods for examining the effect of slum upgrading on health, quality of life and social wellbeing (for example poverty). Nine supporting studies were also included, which used methods that could indicate associations between interventions and outcomes but could not assess whether interventions caused the effect. Only one main study had a low risk of bias, with the rest having a mixed or high risk of bias. The majority of supporting studies had a high risk of bias, meaning their methods had several limitations that made the study results unreliable. In addition, the studies measured different interventions and outcomes, making it difficult to compare results. Overall, there was limited but consistent evidence to suggest that slum upgrading may reduce diarrhoea in slum dwellers and their water-related expenses. There were mixed results for whether slum upgrading reduced parasitic infections, general measures of communicable diseases, financial poverty and unemployment outcomes. There was very little information on other health or social outcomes, or which types of interventions were most beneficial. Some of the studies asked slum dwellers for their views and their experiences of slum upgrading interventions. They suggested a number of reasons why facilities were not used as intended and which may have reduced the benefits. Future research, with improved study designs and common outcome measures, is needed to determine how best to improve the conditions of existing slums and to offer the most benefit to the health, quality of life and social wellbeing of slum dwellers.

Details: London: International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie), 2013. 184p.

Source: Internet Resource: 3ie Systematic Review 13. Accessed June 29, 2017 at: http://www.3ieimpact.org/media/filer_public/2016/07/12/sr13-slum-upgrading-strategies-review.pdf

Year: 2013

Country: International

URL: http://www.3ieimpact.org/media/filer_public/2016/07/12/sr13-slum-upgrading-strategies-review.pdf

Shelf Number: 146468

Keywords:
Poverty
Slums
Socioeconomic Conditions and Crime
Urban Areas and Crime

Author: Eide, Stephen D.

Title: Poverty and Progress in New York III: Crime and Welfare Enrollment One Year Into the de Blasio Administration

Summary: Mayor Bill de Blasio assumed office in January 2014, promising to "take dead aim at the Tale of Two Cities - [and] put an end to economic and social inequalities that threaten to unravel the city we love." With respect to public safety, this promise translated into a determination to continue the low crime rates of recent years through a modified version of the Giuliani and Bloomberg approaches to policing. On welfare, de Blasio made a sharper break from the past. The overarching goals remain greater economic mobility and less government dependence. But these goals are to be achieved through a less "punitive" approach toward enforcing eligibility requirements and "more effective" employment programs that emphasize education and training over work experience. This paper is the third installment in a series that has been tracking the effect of de Blasio's policies at the neighborhood level. Focusing on the effect of initiatives on policing and public assistance, it examines how conditions in the poorest neighborhoods in the five boroughs have changed during 2014, the first year of the de Blasio administration. The paper also investigates citywide trends in arrests, data regarding potential racial bias in the police department, and rates of dependence on social assistance programs. Key Findings Welfare - New York City ended 2014 with more people on welfare than it began. Midyear, the Human Resources Administration (HRA) announced major changes to the city's public assistance program; by the end of 2014, enrollment had grown by about 16,000 since the HRA announcement. - This increase has come during a time of relative prosperity for the local economy, which added more than 90,000 jobs in 2014. Significant growth came in low-wage industries likely to hire welfare recipients. Throughout New York City's history, the general tendency has been for welfare enrollment to decline as job numbers grow. - Enrollment in the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) proved more responsive to improved economic conditions, steadily declining throughout 2014. - The number of public assistance recipients remains very low, by historical standards. Policing - The year 2014 saw annual declines in six out of seven major crime categories. Murders reached historical lows. - There are exceptions to the general good news on crime: 28 precincts saw at least one more murder in 2014 than in 2013; and total crime was up in 14 precincts. The lowest-income neighborhoods in the five boroughs remain far more dangerous than their high-income counterparts. - In the ten lowest-income neighborhoods in the five boroughs, eight saw two or three more murders in 2014 than in 2013. Two experienced more total crime in 2014 than in 2013. - Misdemeanor arrests, though higher than they were ten years ago, are currently on a downward trend. This includes arrests for many, though not all, "Broken Windows," or quality-of-life, offenses such as drug possession. - Civilian Complaint Review Board complaints and allegations of unnecessary or excessive use of force by police are trending down. The year 2014 saw fewer complaints against the NYPD than all but three of the last 16 years. - Use of force in making misdemeanor arrests is extremely rare (2.2 percent) and trending down. - With respect to allegations of racial bias, a comparison between victim-initiated and police-initiated misdemeanor arrests shows that police do not arrest minorities at a higher rate when acting on their own judgment than when responding to specific victim complaints. - Crime is overwhelmingly more of a problem for poor minority neighborhoods, where the greatest demand for policing, measured by 911 calls, is found.

Details: New York: Manhattan Institute, 2015. 24p.

Source: Internet Resource: Civic Report no. 94: https://www.manhattan-institute.org/sites/default/files/cr_94.pdf

Year: 2015

Country: United States

URL: https://www.manhattan-institute.org/sites/default/files/cr_94.pdf

Shelf Number: 146471

Keywords:
Neighborhoods and Crime
Poverty
Socioeconomic Conditions and Crime
Urban Areas and Crime
Welfare

Author: Gentilini, Ugo

Title: Entering the City: Emerging Evidence and Practices with Safety Nets in Urban Areas

Summary: Most safety net programs in low and middle-income countries have hitherto been conceived for rural areas. Yet as the global urban population increases and poverty urbanizes, it becomes of utmost importance to understand how to make safety nets work in urban settings. This paper discusses the process of urbanization, the peculiar features of urban poverty, and emerging experiences with urban safety net programs in dozens of countries. It does so by reviewing multidisciplinary literature, examining household survey data, and presenting a compilation of case studies from a 'first generation' of programs. The paper finds that urban areas pose fundamentally different sets of opportunities and challenges for social protection, and that safety net programs are at the very beginning of a process of urban adaptation. The mixed-performance and preliminary nature of the experiences suggest to put a premium on learning and evidence-generation. This might include revisiting some key design choices and better connecting safety nets to spatial, economic and social services agendas compelling to urban areas.

Details: Washington, DC: World Bank Group, 2015. 190p.

Source: Internet Resource: Social Protection & Labor Discussion Paper no. 1504: Accessed October 7, 2017 at: http://pubdocs.worldbank.org/en/5841448382581833/Entering-the-City-Emerging-Evidence-and-Practices-with-Safety-Nets-in-Urban-Areas.pdf

Year: 2015

Country: International

URL: http://pubdocs.worldbank.org/en/5841448382581833/Entering-the-City-Emerging-Evidence-and-Practices-with-Safety-Nets-in-Urban-Areas.pdf

Shelf Number: 147607

Keywords:
Poverty
Public Safety
Slums
Urban Areas and Crime

Author: CityRisks

Title: Gaps and challenges for addressing security threats in urban environments

Summary: This document surveys the state-of-the-art in the areas related to the City.Risks project. Our analysis starts by reviewing relevant complete and integrated solutions in the urban security landscape. A total of 22 projects and 46 software and hardware solutions have been analyzed. Most of these solutions constitute results of completed and ongoing research projects. The survey focuses on the use cases, target audience, solution types, software platforms and data sources employed in the analyzed solutions. Then, we look into individual areas of research that are of relevance to City.Risks. This analysis focuses on highlighting the current advances and identifying relevant research that can be exploited or extended within the scope of the project. For every research area of focus, we outline the most important recent advances in relation to the City.Risks tasks. Furthermore, based on identified gaps and challenges in the state-of-the-art, we present research directions that can be exploited within the scope of the project. The first relevant area of research we review is Emergency Response and Risk Management. More, specifically, we present the recent advances in emergency alerting and response, augmented reality, and risks management for decision support within the operation center. Then, we outline the most important work related to Data Management that is of relevance to City.Risks. We focus on data acquisition and mining, query processing, privacy and anonymization, data analytics and route planning. Our analysis continues with the areas of Mobile Sensors and Sensor Communication. We overview recent advances on sensor technologies and communications, we present current work in ground monitoring and theft detection, and we discuss relevant approaches for theft detection. Finally, we outline the state-of-the-art in software development methodologies, platform architectures, design process models and theories, and we overview platform architectures for emergency management systems.

Details: Athens: CityRisks, 2015. 116p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed November 2, 2017 at: http://project.cityrisks.eu/wp-content/uploads/deliverables/City.Risks_D2.1_Gaps_and_Challenges.pdf

Year: 2015

Country: Europe

URL: http://project.cityrisks.eu/wp-content/uploads/deliverables/City.Risks_D2.1_Gaps_and_Challenges.pdf

Shelf Number: 147977

Keywords:
Crime Analysis
Crime Mapping
Crime Prevention
Fear of Crime
Neighborhoods and Crime
Urban Areas and Crime

Author: Taylor, A.Y.

Title: This isn't the life for you: Masculinities and nonviolence in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Results from the International Men and Gender Equality Survey (IMAGES) with a focus on urban violence

Summary: Homicide and other forms of violence persist at high levels in Rio de Janeiro. This violence overwhelmingly affects low-income, young black men. Past research has rarely examined the relationship of this violence to gender norms nor has it focused on the interplay between urban violence and family and intimate partner violence (IPV). While most studies focus on pathways into violence, only a few studies examine at factors that encourage nonviolence. In favelas3 and other low-income, marginalized neighborhoods in Rio de Janeiro, boys are exposed from an early age to multiple forms of violence in the household and in their communities. At critical points in life, boys and young men who lack attractive economic opportunities are invited to participate in drug trafficking and, oftentimes, encouraged to use arms or use violence in everyday life. Amidst high levels of urban violence, how do many men adopt and sustain nonviolence in their lives? This research led by Promundo seeks to address two key questions: 1. What factors support groups of men who are surrounded by social and economic inequality, high exposure to violence, and incentives to use violence (e.g., members of drug gangs and the police) in avoiding, abandoning, or lessening their use of violence in complex urban settings? 2. How does higher and lower exposure to urban violence (defined by homicide rates) influence construction of masculinities, experiences of violence during childhood, attitudes and self-reported behaviors about gender among the broader population? Promundo examines these questions in "IMAGES-Urban Violence", a study that adapts IMAGES, the International Men and Gender Equality Survey, to focus on gender and urban violence and the interactions between violence in the public and private spheres in Rio de Janeiro. IMAGES is a comprehensive, multi-country study on men's practices and attitudes toward gender norms, gender equality policies, household dynamics, caregiving and involvement as fathers, intimate partner violence, sexual diversity, and health and economic stress. Promundo's offices in Brazil and the United States coordinated the study, which was part of Safe and Inclusive Cities (SAIC), an initiative of Canada's International Development Research Centre and the United Kingdom's Department for International Development. IMAGES STUDY ON URBAN VIOLENCE IN RIO DE JANEIRO - 1,151 household surveys were conducted with adult men and women in two sites: "South," in the city's southern zone where homicide rates are lower, and "North," predominately in the city's northern zone where homicide rates are high. The sample was drawn using public security administrative areas. - 14 key informant interviews and 45 in-depth life history interviews were carried out. The in-depth interviews sought to capture factors that promote men's trajectories away from the use of violence in complex urban settings. Former drug traffickers, members of the police force, and local activists were invited to participate because these groups of men play crucial roles in using and experiencing of violence and nonviolence in the city. Female partners and family members were also interviewed.

Details: Washington, DC and . Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Promundo, 2016.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed November 18, 2017 at: https://idl-bnc-idrc.dspacedirect.org/bitstream/handle/10625/56228/IDL-56228.pdf

Year: 2016

Country: Brazil

URL: https://idl-bnc-idrc.dspacedirect.org/bitstream/handle/10625/56228/IDL-56228.pdf

Shelf Number: 148263

Keywords:
Family Violence
Homicides
Intimate Partner Violence
Masculinity
Urban Areas and Crime
Violence
Violent Crime

Author: Koper, Christopher S.

Title: The Impact of Policing and Other Criminal and Juvenile Justice Trends on Juvenile Violence in Large Cities, 1994-2000

Summary: This paper reports research that was conducted as part of the University of Pennsylvania's project on "Understanding the 'Whys' Behind Juvenile Crime Trends." The "Whys" project, which was funded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention of the U.S. Department of Justice, was conducted to develop a better understanding of the downturn in juvenile crime that occurred in the 1990s and to use this knowledge to help practitioners and policymakers understand potential leading indicators of turning points in local juvenile crime trends. The main volume of the Whys report (which is available online at https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/grants/248954.pdf and at www.whysproject.org) discusses juvenile violence trends from the 1980s through the early 2000s and assesses evidence on a wide variety of community, developmental, cultural, and policy factors that have been hypothesized as possible causes of juvenile crime trends during this period. (Primary contributors to the main Whys report include Jeffrey Roth (project director), Reagan Daly, Christopher Koper, James Lynch, Howard Snyder, Monica Robbers, and other staff of CSR Incorporated.) The study reported in this paper was conducted as a complement to Chapter 5 of the Whys report, which examines national trends and research on public policies and practices, including those in the criminal and juvenile justice systems, that may have affected juvenile violence during the 1990s. (Readers interested in this background material, which is not reviewed here, should consult Chapter 5 of the Whys report.) As an extension of that work, this paper presents original research examining whether and how changes in criminal and juvenile justice practices and policies affected juvenile violence in urban areas during the 1990s. As discussed in the Whys report, there has been relatively little research directly testing the effects of changes in criminal and juvenile justice practices on the crime drop of the 1990s. Much of the evidence on these matters is indirect. This is particularly true with respect to the drop in juvenile violence. To address this gap in our understanding of the juvenile crime drop, we directly examine whether selected changes in policing, adult incarceration, juvenile detention, and juvenile waivers to adult court reduced juvenile violence in a sample of large U.S. cities from 1994 to 2000, controlling for changes in a variety of community characteristics. In sum, we find indications that police resources and strategies helped to reduce juvenile violence during the 1990s, but we find little or no evidence of beneficial effects from adult incarceration, juvenile detention, or waivers of juveniles to adult court.

Details: Report to the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention , 2011. 25p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed February 6, 2018 at: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f68c/54d6c45a27c2358f2a27e35c92894ce3f848.pdf

Year: 2011

Country: United States

URL: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f68c/54d6c45a27c2358f2a27e35c92894ce3f848.pdf

Shelf Number: 149007

Keywords:
Crime Trends
Juvenile Crime
Juvenile Offenders
Urban Areas and Crime
Violent Crime
Youth Violence

Author: Jackman, David

Title: Living in the shade of others: intermediation, politics and violence in Dhaka City

Summary: Bangladesh is often perceived as disordered, characterised by the absence of law abiding systems of governance, and with the poor left to rely on corrupt and dysfunctional relationships. This thesis tells a different story. Examining the lives of people living in the open and most basic slums ethnographically in Dhaka city reveals that people have complex dependencies on 'intermediaries' or 'brokers' to access resources. Rather than see these relationships as dysfunctional, the core argument developed is that they are inherently part of how social order is maintained in Bangladeshi society. If order is understood as contingent on actors throughout society establishing a dominant capability for violence and accruing resources on this basis, then intermediation can be seen as a prominent means by which both of these ends are achieved. These relationships are thus intertwined with how violence is organised and controlled. A young man who grew up at a bazar described how people need to live in the shade of others, and this metaphor is used to portray this phenomenon. This thesis argues that intermediation in Dhaka has changed significantly over the past decade, with the mastan gangs once identified as powerful in radical decline, replaced by wings of the ruling political party. At the lowest levels of urban society, a complex web of intermediaries exists, including labour leaders, political leaders, their followers and informers. Some people attempt to rise in this order by mobilising as factions and demonstrating their capability for violence, but more generally people employ tactics and strategies for avoiding, negotiating and even exiting these relationships. Negotiating these relationships and one's place in this order is conceptualised here as the politics of intermediation.

Details: Bath, UK: University of Bath, 2017. 223p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed May 24, 2018 at: http://opus.bath.ac.uk/57425/

Year: 2017

Country: Bangladesh

URL: http://opus.bath.ac.uk/57425/

Shelf Number: 150356

Keywords:
Political Corruption
Urban Areas and Crime
Violence

Author: Freire, Danilo Alves Mendes

Title: Evaluating the Effect of Homicide Prevention Strategies in Sao Paulo, Brazil: A Synthetic Control Approach

Summary: Although Brazil remains severely affected by civil violence, the state of Sao Paulo has made significant inroads into fighting criminality. In the last decade, Sao Paulo has witnessed a 70% decline in homicide rates, a result that policy-makers attribute to a series of crime-reducing measures implemented by the state government. While recent academic studies seem to confirm this downward trend, no estimation of the total impact of state policies on homicide rates currently exists. The present article fills this gap by employing the Synthetic Control Method to compare these measures against an artificial Sao Paulo. The results indicate a large drop in homicide rates in actual Sao Paulo when contrasted with the synthetic counterfactual, with about 20,000 lives saved during the period. The theoretical usefulness of the Synthetic Control Method for public policy analysis, the role of the Primeiro Comando da Capital as a causal mediator, and the practical implications of the security measures taken by the Sao Paulo state government are also discussed.

Details: Unpublished paper, 2016. 31p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed June 1, 2018 at: https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/8tmhe/

Year: 2016

Country: Brazil

URL: https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/8tmhe/

Shelf Number: 150424

Keywords:
Homicides
Urban Areas and Crime
Violence Prevention
Violent Crimes

Author: Bartley, Wm. Alan

Title: The Role of Gun Supply in 1980s and 1900s Youth Violence

Summary: Youth violence, particularly among young black males, particularly in urban areas, increased radically in the late 1980s and early 1990s and then began to fall. One explanation for this has been the expansion of crack markets in the 1980s; to the degree that increased gun access among young black males was believed to play a role, the implicit assumption was there was a demand shock in gun markets. Using a novel data set of handgun prices for 1980-2000, combined with ATF data on US rearm production quantities, we document that in fact the prices for cheaper "entry-level" guns fell in this period, suggesting a positive supply shock for the bottom end of the market. We argue that in substantial part this was due to a major reduction in the resources and activities of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) in the 1980s. This allowed substantially greater freedom among licensed gun dealers, a pattern which was reversed in the early 1990s (changes in manufacturing also appear to have played a role in the initial expansion). We document that the positive supply shock increased the availability of guns to criminally active youth and led to higher rates of gun access for young black men, particularly for 25 ACP, 380 ACP and 9mm autoloaders. The increase and decrease in gun violence among young black men can be matched to changes along this causal chain.

Details: Lexington, KY: Transylvania University, 2016. 60p.

Source: Internet Resource: Conference Paper: Accessed August 27, 2018 at: www.aeaweb.org

Year: 2016

Country: United States

URL: www.aeaweb.org

Shelf Number: 151263

Keywords:
Gun Violence
Gun-Related Violence
Homicides
Neighborhoods and Crime
Urban Areas and Crime
Violent Crime
Youth Violence

Author: Canavire-Bacarreza, Gustavo

Title: Moving Citizens and Deterring Criminals: Innovation in Public Transport Facilities

Summary: This paper explores the relationship between urban public transportation innovation and crime. In 2004, the city of Medellin in Colombia developed an innovative public transportation system based on cable cars (Metrocable) to reach dense, isolated and dangerous neighborhoods. Using Spatial Difference in Difference approaches and a rich dataset at spatial analytical level, using max-p modeling, we explore the effects of the Metrocable on crime and its mechanisms. We find a significant impact on homicides reduction in the treated neighborhoods, especially in the medium run. Homicides decreased around 41% more than the general crime reduction in the city between 2004 and 2006, and by 49% between 2004 and 2012. We explore two mechanisms through which this intervention may affect the level of criminality, one is reducing the travel costs and improving accessibility to the rest of the city for low-income population (socioeconomic mechanism); the other is the increasing of the probability of apprehension for potential and active o enders (deterrent mechanism)

Details: Buenos Aires: CAF: Development Bank of Latin America, 2016. 50p.

Source: Internet Resource: CAF � Working paper No. 2016/15: Accessed October 16, 2018 at: http://www.cedlas-er.org/sites/default/files/aux_files/canavire_duque_urrego.pdf

Year: 2016

Country: Colombia

URL: http://www.cedlas-er.org/sites/default/files/aux_files/canavire_duque_urrego.pdf

Shelf Number: 152978

Keywords:
Homicides
Public Transportation
Transit Crime
Transit Safety
Transportation and Crime
Urban Areas
Urban Areas and Crime

Author: Odierno, Raymond

Title: Securing Global Cities: Best Practices, Innovation, and the Path Ahead

Summary: Today, more than half of the world's population lives in cities. Over the next 30 years, that figure will likely increase to 66 percent. This breakneck pace of urban development, coupled with globalization and increased access to information, is changing geopolitics and global economic development. Increasingly, cities are at the center of the world�s economic activity. In the United States, for example, the largest 100 metropolitan areas account for three-quarters of U.S. GDP and two-thirds of the country's population. Integrated global networks, financial systems, and markets are dramatically changing how cities will develop in the future. Connections among cities across the world are deepening through the flow of goods, people, technology, and ideas, bringing increased economic opportunity. Cities are also becoming more interconnected through international diasporas, multinational companies and supply chains, and worldwide communications and travel networks. As one indication, the aggregate amount of transnational investment, services, and trade in goods increased globally from $5 trillion in 1990 to $30 trillion in 2014 (growing from 24 to 39 percent of world GDP). The interconnectedness of citizens, both physically and electronically, leads to ripple effects: what happens in one locale can quickly affect a distant locale too. While these movements of people, goods, and ideas create new opportunities and have positive implications, they also create vulnerabilities. Cities in the United States and around the world find themselves at the nexus of society's most pressing issues, including terrorism, transnational violence, civil and ethnic unrest, organized crime, and technology-based crime, such as cyber threats. Securing cities may be emerging as the central challenge of our day. Security for the individuals, communities, businesses, infrastructure, and institutions making up urban areas is crucial in its own right. It is also fundamentally important for economic growth and for cities to thrive. Some places can advance economically even while experiencing sustained high levels of violence, at least to a degree. But it is difficult to entice investors, inspire innovators, and keep mobile work-forces content without a basic degree of safety. It is these realities that have driven us to focus on the intersection of economic growth, security, and stability, building on the Global Cities Initiative, a joint project of Brookings and JPMorgan Chase. Through conversations with hundreds of practitioners, academics, civic leaders, and government officials over the course of the past year-dialogues that took place in a dozen cities in five countries-we have identified several best practices and principles that should inform the urban security mission.

Details: Washington, DC: Bookings Institute and JP Morgan Chase, 2018. 54p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed November 26, 2018 at: https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/fp_201703_securing_global_cities.pdf

Year: 2018

Country: International

URL: https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/fp_201703_securing_global_cities.pdf

Shelf Number: 153840

Keywords:
Community Policing
Crime Prevention
Design Against Crime
Urban Areas
Urban Areas and Crime
Urban Design

Author: Perera, Jessica

Title: The London Clearances: Race, Housing and Policing

Summary: After the 2011 'riots' in England and Wales, prime minister David Cameron, London mayor Boris Johnson and Department, Works and Pensions Secretary, Iain Duncan Smith laid the blame squarely on 'gangs', described as a 'major criminal disease that has infected streets and estates' and an obstacle to 'neighbourhood rejuvenation, community action and business development'. An existing discussion about what was to be done about London's so-called 'sink estates' was transformed overnight into a 'race' debate, underpinned as it was by a highly racialised alarmist language about 'gangs' and 'gang nominals' (today's equivalent of yesterday's muggers). A stigma began to be attached to black and multicultural neighbourhoods and council estates, linked now to dangerous black youth subcultures like Grime and Drill. All this happened at around the same time that the Home Office was introducing its Ending Gang and Youth Violence (EGYV) strategy, which provides local authorities financial incentives to gather data on young people in gangs or at risk of gang involvement. The Conservative government's existing Estate Regeneration Programme was also accelerated; involving the selling off of local authority-owned housing estates to private partnerships and the decanting of social housing tenants outside the capital in a process that has been described by Simon Elmer and Geraldine Dening as the 'London Clearances'. Politicians could have looked to the real causes of the riots, such as social pressures due to austerity-induced welfare benefit cuts, the closing of youth clubs, aggressive police operations and ill-thought out policies like the ending of the Educational Maintenance Allowance. Housing experts had long warned that the gradual social cleansing of London was eroding community bonds, leading to young people being dispossessed of family, community and social identity. Community workers like Stafford Scott and criminologists like Patrick Williams and Becky Clarke were charting the links between the criminalisation of young working-class BAME people in London and Manchester due to the joint enterprise doctrine, the Gangs Matrices and the moral panic around 'gangs'. Urbanisation scholars and housing activists were linking the social cleansing of the capital with the benefits accruing to another cohort of young people, this time middle-class gentrifiers. In The London Clearances: race, housing and policing the IRR seeks to build on the existing research in ways that foreground more emphatically the connections between urban policy, housing and policing. Our aim is to link knowledge which focuses on institutional racism in policing policy with that which focuses on housing dispossession, regeneration, inequality and exclusion. The purpose is not only to explore the connective tissue between housing and policing, but to develop a much-needed race and class perspective on these issues. After all, London has the largest BAME population in the country with that population predominantly concentrated in social housing. If we are to provide a wider evidence base for NGOs and community campaigns combating institutional racism in policing and/or resisting housing injustice and the race/ class social cleansing of the capital, it is ital that we examine issues of race and class simultaneously.

Details: London: Institute of Race Relations, 2019. 40p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed February 21, 2019 at: http://s3-eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/wpmedia.outlandish.com/irr/2019/02/19145750/London-Clearances.pdf

Year: 2019

Country: United Kingdom

URL: http://s3-eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/wpmedia.outlandish.com/irr/2019/02/19145750/London-Clearances.pdf

Shelf Number: 154683

Keywords:
Gangs
Neighborhoods and Crime
Race Relations
Racial Bias
Racial Discrimination
Racial Profiling in Law Enforcement
Riots
Urban Areas and Crime

Author: Giannini, Renata Avelar

Title: Urban Security Exchange: Data, Design and Innovation for Urban Security

Summary: The Urban Security Exchange: Data, Design and Innovation for Urban Security was held on January 22 and 23, 2018 in San Salvador, at a critical time for Central American countries. On one hand, in early 2018, the capitals of the Northern Triangle countries - Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador - reported significant reductions in their high homicide rates; while on the other, these positive results highlighted the complex efforts necessary to maintain this downward trend amidst the struggle against violence. Effectively, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras present some of the highest homicide rates in the world. In 2018, El Salvador leads the ranking and its capital, San Salvador, is one of the most violent cities on the planet. Nevertheless, such cities were able to reduce their homicide rates between 2016 and 2017. In El Salvador, the rate dropped by 34%, in Honduras, 22% and in Guatemala, 4%. This context of persistently high homicide rates in spite of reductions was a key element throughout the discussion endorsed by the Urban Security Exchange.

Details: Rio de Janeiro: Igarape Institute, 2018. 32p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 18, 2019 at: https://igarape.org.br/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2018-06-04-AE-USEx-dialogos-seguranca-EN-1.pdf

Year: 2018

Country: Central America

URL: https://igarape.org.br/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2018-06-04-AE-USEx-dialogos-seguranca-EN-1.pdf

Shelf Number: 155033

Keywords:
Crime Prevention
Design Against Crime
Homicides
Urban Areas and Crime
Urban Security
Violent Crime

Author: Alker, Zoe

Title: Street Violence in Mid-Victorian Liverpool

Summary: During the 1850s and 1860s, Victorian London was gripped by fears of violent street crime. Historians have examined these fears and the ways that anxieties over the unruly, rough robber shaped punitive legal responses in the form of the Security from Violence (Garrotters) Act (1863) which revoked the reformatory prison movement and reintroduced flogging for offenders of violent robbery. Crimes of all kinds were reported to be on the increase during the middle decades of the nineteenth century, but it was violent street crime that generated the most press and state attention. This thesis re-investigates these fears, but also shifts focus to interrogate the crimes that provoked them, and their role in shaping urban street life in mid nineteenth-century Liverpool. To date, the examination of popular fears about garrotting tells only a very small portion of the history of street crime and this study aims to readdress this. In part the thesis explores the ways in which representations of crime in the popular imagination impacted upon the identities of robbers and their victims but, in order to fully understand the dynamics behind street violence, I argue that we need to examine street crime in the very place where it occurred: the streets. Therefore, the thesis studies the meanings of violence- through an interrogation of both word and deed- to argue that power was not just manufactured and reinforced by the bourgeois elite, namely, the press, police, courts and Parliament, but between the victims and offenders themselves. Street crime is an ideal subject for studying the social interactions through which people defined themselves because it provides one of the few instances where people collided and clashed in the everyday setting of the street. Since robbery in mid-Victorian Liverpool was committed by offenders and experienced by victims who shared the same overcrowded and harsh living conditions of the city's north end slums, street violence provides us with a means of entry into the conflicts and tensions of the city's working classes and their neighbourhoods. This study explores the proliferation and fluidity of identities generated by street crime as articulated and rehearsed in the press, the streets and, finally, its culmination in the courts. Garrotting connoted a particular style of committing violent robbery; specifically, it involved the use of strangling or 'putting the hug on'. The garrotter, as the workshy savage with a propensity for gratuitous violence, was the dangerous figurehead of the 'criminal classes'. In the context of debates about the causes and effects of criminality, the garrotter was subject to multiple discourses each of which served to marginalise the street robber from the boundaries of respectable society. The stereotype of the garrotter underwent various transformations and was subject to competing and intersecting discourses: moral, racial, imperial, quasi-medical and pseudo-scientific. Anxieties about urban space, masculinity, crime, race and class were mapped on to the narrative construction of the garrotter in popular culture. Yet the ways in which dominant discourses shaped the garrotter had the same implication: to marginalise him from 'normal' society by labelling him as deviant and justifying the increase in state power over the 'unrespectable' working classes. The representation of the garrotter as a workshy savage who made a living solely from crime had little in common with those who offended in mid-Victorian Liverpool. One of the aims of this thesis is to debunk the myths about garrotting that were circulated in the metropolitan panic. Garrotting denoted a particular style of committing street robbery but offenders of street crime in Liverpool employed various ways of robbing their victims which included the removal of clothing, insults, sexual violence and punching. The victims and offenders of street crime in Liverpool were drawn from various occupations, backgrounds, and deployed various means of committing street robbery; as such, the representations were complex. These representations were also, to a degree, localised. Liverpool's status as a port meant that it had a transient and varied population. As a result, the stereotypes of victims and offenders highlighted local concerns about cultural groups, such as street corner men, sailors, prostitutes and the Irish Catholic community, all of whom had a significant presence in Liverpool's street life. The space and place of street crime - the pub, the street corner, backalleys, cellars and illicit lodging houses - impacted upon the representation of victims and offenders, and shaped fears about working-class leisure and the use of public space. Moving beyond representations, this study situates the dynamics of street violence in the place in which they occurred: the streets. Crucially, one of the key contributions this study makes to histories of street violence is in its examination of violent robbery from below. Through the use of GIS mapping software, alongside a qualitative reading of the behaviour evidenced by the offences, it is possible to reconstruct a spatial picture of crime by exploring: firstly, press perceptions of where criminals committed street crime; secondly, the journey or distance to crime for both victim and offender; and, finally, the link between the spatial location of the offence and the social status of the victim and offender. I argue throughout this thesis that the location of offences was key to the identities that offenders drew upon to secure street robberies. This study highlights the gendered nature of street crime. I adapt the criminological concept of street masculinity to describe the contours of gendered behaviour that was enacted in Victorian street robberies. In his study of late 1990s St Louis, Christopher Mullins argued that the gender models which offenders drew upon were determined by the positioning of crime on the street. Mullins argued that, 'Seizing upon the notion that gender is partly structural and partly performatory, scholars have sought out the ways in which male offenders "do masculinity" through doing crime.' I suggest that street masculinity is a useful concept for historicising street behaviour and, in addition, I develop this concept to argue that the patterns of behaviour by female offenders can be seen as evidence of 'street femininity'. Men's and women's lives were networked by the home, church and workplace; each was a physical location, but also a cultural space that dictated particular ways of presenting versions of the self....

Details: Liverpool: Liverpool John Moores University, 2014. 283p.

Source: Internet Resource: Dissertation: Accessed March 19, 2019 at: http://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/4483/1/157538_2014AlkerPhD.pdf

Year: 2014

Country: United Kingdom

URL: http://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/4483/1/157538_2014AlkerPhD.pdf

Shelf Number: 155053

Keywords:
Fear of Crime
Gang-Related Violence
Gangs
Garrotting
Masculinity
Robbery
Street Robbery
Street Violence
Urban Areas and Crime
Violent Crime

Rutgers - School of Law, Newark

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