How to understand the feeling of insecurity at night and provide innovative solutions and practices to mitigate it
In 2018, Efus set up a working group on Security & Innovation that seeks to harness the opportunities of smart and hyper connected cities to improve crime prevention and urban security. The purpose is to share reflections and insights on innovative social strategies and technologies that can be applied to urban security. We consider that innovation includes not only technological tools but also social ones. We understand innovation in urban security as new solutions and new ways of approaching existing and emerging problems. These tools can aim to facilitate the understanding of problems, the definition of solutions, and the implementation and evaluation of interventions. At their core, the innovations are about shifting towards a co-production of urban security policies, both in their development and in their implementation. We will continue to deepen our knowledge on the topics already discussed, such as predictive policing, civic technology and facial recognition. At the same time we want to open the conversation to include new aspects of innovative strategies in urban security.
Efus is excited to start a second series of web conferences that will cover both technological and social innovations in the realm of urban security, as well as those that combine the two. The Cutting Crime Impact (CCI) Project, in which Efus is a partner, aims to enable police and relevant local and national authorities to reduce the impact of petty crime and, where possible, prevent crime from occurring in the first place. The idea is to support local security actors in conceiving human-centred solutions that are tailored to the specific needs of the end-user. The research and findings of this project greatly nourished the first series of web conferences of our working group. In this second series, we will not only integrate aspects of the project’s focus areas but also elements of its methodology to illustrate how innovative working methods can be applied in practice.
The use of the city changes during night time: the needs and demands of citizens are not the same as during the day thus, the issues and possible responses should reflect these differences. At night, the usual points of reference disappear; citizens experience an increased sense of uncertainty and anxiety that feeds a specific feeling of insecurity which is only partially the result of a real threat of crime. Feelings of insecurity, especially at night, are of importance for their impact on the individual and collective well-being as well as for its economic and political consequences. Understanding which factors - for instance, personal victimisation experiences or awareness of crime as a societal issue - affect different groups’ perceptions of security helps untangle fear of crime from other emotional reactions such as situational anxiety, shock, anger or distress.
In the framework of this Working Group we invite those stakeholders that are the most concerned by this issue to discuss the following questions:
? How does the feeling of insecurity change at night?
? What concrete impacts can feelings of insecurity have?
? What methods and tools to better assess the perceived insecurity levels?
? How do different European cities deal with some of the most insecurity-generating behaviours such as street intimidation and sexual harassment?
The European forum for urban security – through its Nightlife and Security and Innovation Working Groups – and the Plateforme de la Vie Nocturne (Nightlife Platform) invite you to participate in this thematic Working Group seeking to reflect collectively on the prior listed elements. In order to launch the discussion and learn about interesting experiences we will count with the presentations from:
? Elena Guidorzi, Experientia
? Randy Bloeme, DSP Groep
? Aušra Pocien? & Aleksandras Dobryninas, Vilnius University
On November 24th we will discuss innovative tools to measure and mitigate feelings of insecurity at night. This discussion will be organized jointly by the Efus Working Group on Nightlife and the Working Group on Security and Innovation.
Learn more about the other 2 webinars and register HERE and HERE.
The objective of the working group continues to be the provision of information on new methodologies, tools and experiences that are tailored to the changing security needs of our members. We are looking forward to welcoming you again to our web conferences and on Efus Network to continue discussing old and new topics.
Registration and more details about the programme and the confirmed speakers can be found HERE.
If you have any questions please contact:
Martí Navarro Regàs: [email protected]
Pauline Lesch: [email protected]
