Safe City final exam

Crime patterns of early modern cities

• higher concentration of crime in cities than countryside

• more diverse

• higher womans ratio

• serious violence decline

Why has crime decreased over centuries? (with fluctuation)

• more control through policing

• better quality of police

• lesser acceptance of crime

• developing medicine (decreased murder but not attempted murder)

Definition of crime

changers over time and is dependent on culture

• cultural differences: marital rapes, abortion, drug use, gay marriage

• time: e.g. creation of internet led to new forms of crime

Change in punishment

• evolved from corporal to imprisonment

• state took control of judicial system and of population

Role of the Enlightenment

→ state of crime becoming problematized and being prosecuted

Hobbes: (1651) — need to be punished for what you did wrong to society

Montesquieu + Rousseau: social contract between rulers and people - people expect fair punishments

Classical school mid 18th century

Beccaria: - against arbitrary power

- rule of law should prevail

- punishment should be proportional to crime and harm done

—> shift in how crime and punishment were considered

Bentham: - can’t rely on god/devil

- principles of law based on the rationality of humans

—> humans are rational,hedonistic and have free will so they should respond to deterrence

Deterrence

the action of discouraging an action or event through instilling doubt or fear

Principles of deterrence

1. certainty

2. severity (should be proportional)

3. celerity (done quickly)

→ paradox: people still committing crimes

Phrenology (Biological theories of crime)

(Gall)

→ study of shape of the skull to indicate mental faculties and character (pseudoscience)

→ first fully developed theory of crime

→ meh to apply a scientific method to a social phenomena of criminality

Positivist school and Degeneration theory

Theory: biological characteristics create the “unfit”

→ find characteristics - find criminal

→ some people are born criminals

→ pseudoscience

• goes against rationality

Impact of the degeneration theory on society

• prejudice and racism

• developed new research techniques (mugshots and fingerprinting)

Emile Durkheim

→ sciences cannot explain social phenomena; need to look at context

→ crime more likely linked to social environment, organizations of neighborhoods etc.

→ Concept of Anomie

Concept of Anomie (Durkheim)

break up of moral values, standards and shared norms in society

How can Anomie explain crime?

Crime occurs when:

1. social norms are changing too rapidly and created a feeling of alienation (e.g. during industrialization; large waves of migration)

2. when conflict occurred between an individual or a group with different values than rest of society

   → by going against common values aimed at the good of the society as a whole, individuals can become criminal

Chicago school and Social disorganization theory

Chicago school: emphasis on impact of the environment and social structure on human behavior

Social Disorganization Theory: links crime rates to neighborhoods ecological characteristics; failure of social institutions

Different kinds of safety

• social insecurity - threat to health and property by deliberate criminal acts

• physical insecurity - threat to health by accidents (road safety, natural disasters)

→ objective safety: number of murders, car theft, floods….

→ subjective safety: fear of falling victim to a crime, fear of falling ill

“Safe City”

a city that is both free of both crime (objective social security) and fear of crime (subjective social security)

Crime

human behavior in which other people (animals, or the environments) are exploited or harmed

→ violates social rules and for which legal norms are established by the government indicating that it is not allowed

Note: its a working definition — differences in what is considered crime varies of time and cultures

Criminology

• the body of knowledge regarding crime as a social phenomena that includes the process of making and breaking laws as well as reacting to the breaking of laws

• why certain things are defined as criminal and who has the power to make such decisions

• critique: often a focus on violent crimes and not other factors of safety considered

Why is crime an issue?

its common

• crime against persons

• crime against property

societal issue because it causes significant harm

• material harm for citizens as an effect of the crime itself

• material harm: cost of policing/preventing harm

• environmental harm

• immaterial harm: suffering of victims, trauma, fear of crime, avoidant behavior

How do we measure crime?

1. crimes reported to police

2. interview surveys of victims

3. self report surveys asking if participants broke the law

4. health and mortality stats

Crimes reported to police critique

(widely used but quite unreliable)

• affected by peoples ability and willingness to report a crime

• crimes committed against people who commit crime hesitant to report

• depends on willingness of police to record crime

  → probably more crime happening than police stats say

Victim surveys criticism

(more accurate in uncovering the experience of crime)

• but still reluctance to talk about victimization

• especially when self involved in crime

  → levels of crime still understated

Self report surveys

• more crimes compared to police reports but still reluctant

Health and mortality rates

(most accurate measure for particular violent crimes)

• most reliable → harder to hide

• but only includes certain crimes

  e.g. murders — doesnt count attempted murder

ecological fallacy

when one makes inferences about individuals based on group-level data

Muchembled on late-medieval cities

• should be as safe as possible to encourage commerce + prosperity

  → physical defenses (walls)

  → early forms of policing

  → justice dispensed by various institutional bodies

Did crime increase in the 18th century?

three processes that raised concern about crime

1. Bureaucratization - increase in crime prosecution

2. centralization - increase in visibility of crime

3. urbanization - increase in crime

Birth of the dangerous classes (19th century concept)

Bureaucratization and centralization led to the collection of quantitative data → stats revealed high level of crimes in cities where proletarization (creation of working class) increased

→ lower class seen as threatening to elite/bourgeois ideals

→ created dangerous class

• created fear of lower classes

• “breeding ground of evil doers”

• publication of works that put blame on lower classes

• positivist idea of born criminals

Fear of crime an elitist problem of the 18th century?

Henry Fielding: surveillance of lower classes not to make population feel safer but to control them - segregation of classes

Colquhun: advocated for police focused on “preventing” crime

Murray: top down view of F.O.C

Nocturnalization (Koslofski)

• expansion of legitimate social and symbolic uses of the night

• first by elites → domestication of the night

• introduction of shifts → lower classes working more during the evening

• street lamps

Industrial city as criminogenic

• increased migration

• increase in produced goods

• limited police

→ concentration of potential offenders, suitable targets and absence of legitimate guardians (Routine Activity Theory)

Visibility of crime 18th-19th century

four processes that again increased concerns

1. Urbanization : increase in potential offenders and targets

2. Bureaucratization: increase in crime prosecution

3. Centralization: increase in visibility for the gov.

4. Mediatization: increase in information of crime shared (Moral Panic)

Importance of studying FOC

• can be harm quality of life by reducing mobility

• political means

• related to a city’s economy

Defining fear of crime

→ no universally accepted definition

better to look at different factors independently (open box)

F.O.C. closed box

• standard question of how to study crime (“How safe do you feel alone in the neighborhood at night?”)

Critique:

• limiting in context (only focusing on neighborhood and night)

• safety not only relates to crime but also e.g. fires

• doesn’t factor in emotions

• not suitable for responding to specific problems

• fails to mention crime at all

Opening box

• dont mix fear and perceived risk

Rader:

Perceived risk: pepoles estimation of how likely they are to falling victim to a crime

Fear of crime: asking if people are afraid of certain crimes

Opened box

• emphasis on emotional dimension

• critique: only measures FOC and doesnt help understand it

• no differentiation between intensity and frequency

Victimization thesis (FOC individual level explanations)

direct:

• previous victimization affect on how people report to feel

• not strong evidence that its a constant or strong explanation

• “wasn’t too bad”

indirect:

• hearing from secondary sources about potential victimization

• media plays big role

• more evidence here

• it affects how we look at certain parts of the city (mental safety maps) (interpret signs in relation to what you have learned about that situation)

Vulnerability thesis (FOC individual level explanation)

→ perception of being socially or physically vulnerable

background variables: age, gender, etc.

Gender: strongest and most widely accepted predictor of FOC

• shadow of sexual assault theory (linking other crimes to fear of being sexually assaulted)

• social construction of masculinity and femininity

Neighborhood FOC/contextual level explanation (Theoretical model - Wilkstrom & Dolmen)

(I dont really know)

Social integration: contexts in which individuals are tightly knit and connected - theoretically more likely to respond to problems of crime and disorder —> considered to reduce FOC —> informal social control

Disorder:

• physical disorder: visible results of undesirable behavior → broken widows theory

• social disorder: people who exhibit transgressing behavior

Configuration of space: layout of neighborhood important - mixed use, natural surveillance (Jane jacobs - eyes on the street)

Situational FOC/Event level explanations

personal experienced fears in a broader context or specific location

• mental mapping

• colors, lighting, layout?

• less explanations

Typology of crime in the past (Middle ages to 1800, Europe)

• against God (linked to morality)

• against property

• against person

• against public order

→ prosecution and sentencing based on precedents and royal decrees

How is crime linked to the city?

• due to concentration of people from rural origins?

  • anomie theory (Durkheim - father of sociology)

  • when people move to the city they look for contact with support system network, lack of control

• due to attention given to crime and offenders?

  • fear of dangerous classes

  • gave impression urbanization linked to crime

• due to environment?

  • Chicago school/social disorganization theory

  • context dependent

  • crime linked to social and physical environment you live in

Case Study: England and Scotland → why were Irish over-represented in 19th. century England crime stats?

• migration: changing perception after Great Famine

• anomie : mismatch between personal and group standards/wider society → migrational context could have created tensions e.g. because of different religions

• Othering → discrimination and stereotyping of the Irish (were associated with criminality and drunkenness)

“Othering”

→ process of creating “the other”

Hegel: concept of self can only exist if other is its counterpart (only when you can compare to someone else)

• differences can be seen as positive or negative

• natural to make sense of environments to define ourselves

  • problematic when its used to denigrate the value of the other

Tool to justify exclusion or control by the more powerful

Post war crime rise (1960s)

often associated with poverty, urbanization and social disorganization

Sociological Paradox:

• increasing incomes

• disparities decerased

• poverty declined

• unemployment decreased

• education increased

Newburns Health warnings (be critical: trends(rise,drop,change) don’t include all crimes)

• consistency → different ways of recording (US has different law enforcement)

• only recorded crimes covered → always big dark number

• reporting vs. officially recording → drop case when evidence not strong enough; political decision (crime rates not recorded because its bad for the agenda/image

• police practices “in the round” → police focusing on one crime and increasing protocols for said crime increase found numbers

• insurance coverage → if you want to collect insurance fee you need evidence so more people reported crime

Ferrell, Hayward & Young on crime rates

e.g. "domestic violence dropped by 34%”

→ rates might not have dropped; consider:

• how many victims are prepared to speak up?

• what is the definition of domestic violence? did it change?

• who is asking the questions?

• who reported the numbers?

Routine Activity Theory (Cohen & Felson)

What does crime need to be a crime?

• a victim or target

• a motivated offender

• a lack of a capable guardian

→ criminal opportunity theory (takes offender for granted)

Routine activity theory as dominant explanation for crime rise 60s

Increase in suitable targets

• increased car ownership

• increase in small valuables and appliances

• increase in woman labor market participation and leisure activities (increase pool of predatory crimes)

Decrease in guardianship

• increase in commuting/away from household activity

• increase in woman labor → house unguarded during day

macro level theory → explaining rise in country or region

Crime drop beginning 1990s explanation

• still not really an explanation

• maybe because nature of crime changed?

Crime drop explanations discussed in Newburn

1. Imprisonment

2. Policing

3. Security and prevention (?)

Imprisonment

• mass incarceration in US because of war on drugs → easier than prevention

• politically interesting to invest in rather than prevention → see results faster

• crime dropped because imprisonment rose

Mechanisms punishment

Deterrence:

• general or

• specific (person that already committed a crime might be less likely to be a repeat offender)

• stigma around prisons → mass incarceration might decrease stigma

Rehabilitation of prisoners:

• not a factor because spending went down

Incapacitation:

• inability of an incarcerated person to commit additional crimes (Take offenders of the street)

• however → crimes inside prisons not recorded; crimes from inside to the outside (mass incarceration gives power to prison gangs)

failure of specific deterrence

those released from prison most likely to be involved because they were incarcerated

• know what its like

• prison as school of crime

• interference with stakes of conformity

• labeling as criminal - does damage; already labeled so might as well

• resentment

• inter-generational factors of incarceration on family

What caused the prison boom?

• not because of crime rise but “era of prison industrial complex”

• ideologies of racism → punished more for lesser crimes

• pursuits of profits → private prisons with large companies having a stake hold

• mass supervision

different types of policing

• community policing

• problem-oriented policing

• standard model

• hot spots policing

Newburn:

-policing more focused on one community

-amount of police officers (more not always better)

-hot spot policing

Governmentality

a modern form or “art” of governance that gave shape to a complex array of programs and techniques for governing people and things in the present but also with the aim of shaping the future

• logic of governmentality sees crimes such as theft affecting the entire population

  • increased security measures (police and private security)

  • other methods of controlling crime such as punishments and biopower

  → problem: ignores agency of people

Population beginning 18th century

• seen as having its own dimension and regularities → independent from the state and needed to be managed

• new techniques for government intervention → crime prevention based on empirical research

Programs & techniques of government(ality)

easily implemented after research:

• Who/What is being governed?

• How are they being governed?

• To what end are they being governed? (Goal)

Social Control

mechanisms in the form of patterns of pressure through which society maintains social order and cohesion

• enforces standard behaviors; shame, coercion, force and persuasion

• exercised through individuals, groups and institutions

• goal: maintain conformity

Informal social control

• peer-pressure, gossip, vigilantes

• acts committed in public to denounce non-respect of the norms of the majority

• importance of shame and othering

• eyes on the street - encourages potential offenders not to act

Formal social control

by institutions (police, tribunals, prisons, churches, university courts…)

• could rely on same techniques such as shame

• deterrence

• goal: maintaining social order and cohesion

in between: private security (follow codes of institutions but dont have all the right)

Who was the police? (Renaissance - Napoleon)

• gate keepers

• watchmen

• soldiers/mercenaries

• constables and justices of the peace

• neighborhood committees

• etc

Tasks of ‘old’ police

• enforce common standards

• control of goods and people entering the city

• armed support for tax collection

• raise alarm in case of fire

• control of faith

• help in catching criminals

• defense of city in case of attack

• mediation

  = preventing crime was not their main duty

Develpment of police

Late 17th France

• developed more rational professional type of police

• to maintain standard

18th century

• some wages

• attention starts turning to preventative role

New institutions

• police professionalization

• better control of population

• special units to regulate migration

Theories explaining crime at neighborhood level

• social disorganization theory

• collective efficacy theory

• broken windows theory

• defensible space theory

Social Disorganization theory

• developed by the Chicago School

• theory directly links crime rates to neighborhood characteristics

• residential location is as significant or more significant than a person’s individual characteristic

Background: Chicago in 20s - 40s

• industrialization

• attracting many outsiders

  • rapid urbanization

  • societal shift

Chicago Schools concerns:

• community deterioration

• disorder, poverty, alienation

• unemployment

• weakening bonds

Social Disorganization theory and FOC

1. fear of crime as rooted in objective crime rates

2. fear of crime as rooted in the unfamiliar and unpredictable other

   • direct result of concerns

   • social control to control fear

SD Theory critique

dissatisfaction in relation to changing urban world

• idea and ideal of urban villages (with strong local friendship networks) seems increasingly less valid as part of an individualizing and up-tempo urban living

• are these ties still important in a globalizing, individualizing and digitizing world?

  → introduce collective efficacy

Collective efficacy theory

• refers to the ability of members of a community to control the behavior of individual /groups in the community

• how this trust among residents reduces crimes

• lack of collective efficacy (perception of a group that they can successfully work together) in neighborhoods theorized to increase crime there

How to measure collective efficacy

feelings of trust and cohesion amongst residents + informal social control

Broken Windows Theory

states that visible signs of crime, and anti social behavior create an urban environment that encourages further crime and disorder

Broken windows theory criticism

• what is disorder? who defines it?

• disorder and crime 2 sides of the same coin? → if they have the same root how can there be a causal relationship

• theory (ab)used

  • by policing: arresting people for misdemeanors

  • stop and frisk: search and question anyone who looks sus

Defensible space theory (Oscar Newman)

→ argues that architectural and environmental design plays a crucial part in increasing or reducing criminality

core idea: community’s capacity for social control is directly influenced by the physical design of the neighborhood

defensible space

a residential environment whose physical characteristics function to allow inhabitants themselves to become key agents in ensuring their security

Four core concepts of the defensible space theory

1. territoriality

2. natural surveillance

3. image

4. milieu/GJ

Territoriality

capacity of the physical environment to create perceived zones of territorial influence

→ sense of ownership crucial for creating social control and FOC

Natural surveillance

capacity of physical design to provide surveillance opportunities for residents and their agents

→ easier to monitor and this execute social control

Image

capacity of design to influence the perception of a projects uniqueness, isolation and stigma

→ appearance influences perception

Milieu/GJ

influence of geographical juxtaposition with so called safe zones on the security of adjacent areas

→ locations considered safe can have a spillover effect on the surrounding environment

Mapping disorder - chaos of the city Grundlagen

→ increasing interests for crime stats during 19th century

→ collection of data thanks to bureaucratization

• led to first analytical maps of what was deemed problematic at the time (illness, poverty, crime, prostitution)

goal of maps: explanation/solutions for issues using empirical data

Charles James Booth - one of the dudes that made maps

• maps/stats reflect interests, concerns and moral norms held by the elite at that time

Moral Geographies

studies of interaction and variations within morality, pace and space such as the analysis of global variations in moral beliefs and practices

• subject to improvement

Improvement (moral geographies)

• securitization, policing, destruction of the area, building of workers habitations, opening up of the urban space

• basis: seeing an area/neighborhood as problematic

• e.g. Paris ( large avenues that destroyed slums )

• e.g. Chicago (areas of gangs destroyed and rebuilt for more elite residents)

Police in port cities then vs. now

Then: police and security to guarantee an orderly port economy, commercial activities, circulation of people and gods

Today: hybridization such as plural policing

plural policing

→ different ways of controlling/policing people

• police

• private security

neo-liberal strategies of crime prevention

Was plural policing a new idea?

No

Leloup: plural and private policing were central features of crime control an prevention at turn of 19th century

• notion of harm reduction, risk management, situational crime prevention are not late modern inventions

Port of Antwerp

• massive growth from transport to commercial port (1860s-1929)

• major rise in property crime in port district

• growth made it impossible to control efficiently

• complex network of public, private and hybrid security > cooperation and competition

Possible solutions to rise of crime

• control of labor force but situational crime prevention more suitable

Situational crime prevention

manipulating the environment to limit crime and problem oriented approach : reduce opportunities for specific crime by increasing risk o being caught and reducing the reward

Problem oriented actions

• gather data to understand problem and find risk paces

• opportunity reducing measures because opportunity makes the thief (not social or biological)

  • remove temptations

Practical changes

• increasing means of control (more artificial lights, more guards, fewer windows of opportunity)

• fences + manned gates

• temporal control

• private control(merchant owners job to secure goods)

Situational vs. social crime prevention

social: underlying criminality of criminal behavior; fundamental causes of crime

situational: more preventative; reducing opportunities; locally or situationally implemented → criticized for displacing the problem and not going to the root cause

Situational opportunity theories

• focus on understanding crime on the local/micro level

• guidance on how to prevent it

• central focus is crime opportunity

• relies on some form of rational choice theory

→ decision to engage in crime can be manipulated

Rational choice theory

→ criminal behavior as a result from the rational calculation of costs and benefits

• cost of crime highest when punishment is certain, immediate and proportional to the crime

• uses ideas of deterrence (specific and general)

• people choose to commit crimes→ choice is guided by maximization of satisfaction or utility

• utility of crime = expected gains + expected costs

Benefits and costs of crime

benefits:

• material goods (money, goods…)

• immaterial goods (drug rush, excitement, status)

Costs:

• material costs (effort, punishment)

• immaterial costs (reputation, self image)

so basically do crime when benefits outweigh the costs ( Jeff would be proud)

Bounded rationality theory

RCT bold assumptions

• people are capable of such calculations and have the necessary info

• assumes rationality is not impacted by emotions or e.g. drugs

BRT: fleeting calculations of benefits and costs are made within the limits of time, resources and info

• argues that behavioral choices are structured in peoples routines and affected by social distribution of opportunities and prevention from authorities

How are opportunities of crime distributed through cities?

Crime pattern theory

• where do motivated offenders search for crime opportunities?

  → mostly in everyday activities

• Nodes, pods, concept of activity space, awareness space

Nodes

home node + other activity nodes

→ often lots of people bundling at these locations

assumption that when given the chance at least some people will consider crime