Safe Cities and Communities - Theme Cities: Solutions for Urban Problems - page 438

12.4.3 Foundational Features of Safe City Plans

Any effective Safe City strategy needs a series of foundational features to be built
into the safe-city strategy in which various crime reduction policies are chosen and
implemented. Nine separate issues can be identified as important features to be
considered and built into the plan.

12﻽4﻽3﻽1 Temporal Commitment

It must be accepted that successful policies to reduce crime usually take time to both
implement and to be effective. This does not deny that some short-term measures
can lead to success. But in most cases the real solutions to major crime problems—
especially to the eradication of high crime areas or those associated with particular
groups − require policies that are implemented over a long time period. This means
an on-going commitment in personal and resources. There are few easy, quick solu-
tions to many crime problems; most have evolved over years and may take a similar
time to resolve.

12﻽4﻽3﻽2 Resident and Citizen Involvement

It has been a mistake to allow crime-fighting and rehabilitation agencies, such as
social services, to operate mainly in isolation from the population at large, or with
only token links to the public. The promotion of citizen involvement in crime needs
to ensure that citizens are active and prominent partners in the evolution and evalu-
ations of general strategies and individual policies, not just as nominal members of
committees. They need to be effective members who are able to provide advice to
the respective crime agencies and to provide linkages and feedback from the people
who are most affected. They should also have the power to prevent the agencies
that fight crime from adopting practices that may be self-serving, and even biased
by excluding ethnic or religious minorities, eroding civil rights, or be perceived as
negatively affecting the population at large. Moreover it is important not to allow
citizens to take the law into their own hands in some sort of vigilante action, which
usually leads to either targeting the wrong people, or unnecessary violence.

12﻽4﻽3﻽3 Integration

Too many of the existing policies designed to combat crime are silo-like in ap-
proach, in the sense they are associated with single agencies that primarily deal with
part of the system of justice, or with associated departments, and do not co-operate
effectively. So crime-fighting should be treated in a co-ordinated way, by ensuring
that there is a strong focus upon both the people and places most associated with
crime, as well as using different agencies, not simply the police, with expertise to