Safe Cities and Communities - Theme Cities: Solutions for Urban Problems - page 440

in various parts of the city where diverse levels and types of crimes may occur. In
addition, it is also necessary to be aware of diffusion or spill-over effects. When
crime-fighting policy has been successful in one area, those involved in crime often
move to another area and cause problems there. So it must be anticipated that a
solution in one area may not result in an overall crime reduction, or the problem be-
comes less visible because criminals change tactics by using threatening behaviour
to restrict knowledge of their activities, or turn to new methods and types of crime.
Another spatial problem that needs to be faced is the fact that many crimes are com-
mitted by people who may be just visiting an area, and increasingly by groups with
international connections. So crime-fighting policies must take these issues into
account. Hence the sharing of information across jurisdictions, especially national
ones through agencies such as Interpol, is increasingly important.

12﻽4﻽3﻽6 Unanticipated or Negative Effects

Many actions that are designed to improve the situation of humans and the human
environment have unanticipated negative effects which may counteract the positive
features. It is asking too much to be able to always anticipate all these problems.
However, a careful scrutiny of the effects of particular crime policies that have been
applied in other jurisdictions often provides clues to unanticipated crime results, or
what may happen if a policy is applied elsewhere, or is inappropriate.

12﻽4﻽3﻽7 Preventative, Not Reactive Emphases

Most of the traditional policing and court practices in twentieth century western
cities and society focused on apprehending criminals and punishing them for their
crime, which is essentially a post-crime approach. There can be little doubt that this
will continue to be an important part of the law and order agenda. A major trend has
been to adopt preventative crime programmes, such as those designed to reduce the
numbers of people developing criminal behaviour and to reduce the rate of recidi-
vism of people after jail sentences. Unfortunately the financial resources for such
policies are still limited.

12﻽4﻽3﻽8 Effective Management Structures

This may be one of the most fundamental features of an effective Safe City strategy.
To some extent it could be considered part of the integrative approach, but its role
is more fundamental since it refers to the need to have a crime management struc-
ture that involves the top officials in the all government agencies that are related to
crime, to ensure that the strategy is considered to be a major priority in the city and
that sufficient resources are devoted to the tasks. Again one of the best examples in
seen in a Safe City approach in The Netherlands where a Security Steering Group