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Measuring and mitigating citizens' feelings of insecurity

Perception Matters - Citizen Safety

La Percepció Importa. La seguretat de les persones

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The Problem

Outbreaks of citizens' perceptions of insecurity can have political implications that require a rapid response specifically targeting causal factors. Such feelings of insecurity can result from a range of issues — from prostitution, to use of public space by vulnerable groups, to more systemic problems.

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Common responses to insecurity rely on increased police presence and visibility, which generally don’t tackle the underlying problems. Such responses may result in a temporary cessation of criminal activity. For example, in Catalonia, a few weeks after a police raid, the local situation reverts back to 'normal'.

When researching the real-world problem on which their CCI Tool should focus, the Department of Interior of Catalonia decided to focus on the issue of groups of empty apartments being taken over by drug dealers and their customers — so-called 'narcopisos' — and the impact on citizens' perceptions of insecurity in one neighbourhood of Barcelona.

Despite recorded victimisation rates not having actually increased, citizens' perceive the risk of falling victim to crime as being very high. In January 2020, residents took their displeasure to the streets and demonstrated against their perceived increasing insecurity.

The Tool

The Perception Matters Tool is a manual comprising five parts that guide local
practitioners through the process of understanding and responding to citizens'
feelings of insecurity.

The Tool outlines the ingredients of an outbreak of perceptions of insecurity:

  • How to decide on the immediacy of response required;
  • How to analyse the situation;
  • How to communicate interventions and their progress to citizens.

The Tool supports public prevention officers and senior police managers

to properly identify the underlying causes of citizens’ feelings of insecurity and to articulate a comprehensive public response.

Tool Components

01

Analysis and response guide

  • A checklist of questions should be asked when exploring underlying reasons for an outbreak of insecurity. These are guided by the CCI Feelings of Unsafety Lifecycle
02

Criteria for a quick response

  • To help users determine whether an urgent and immediate response is required
03

Useful tools and methodologies

  • Short and practical explanations of research methods to explore feelings of insecurity
04

Criteria for mid- to long-term responses

  • Identification of factors impacting feelings of unsafety and possible responses to address these
05

Perceived safety and communication support

  • Advice on how to best manage communications to improve perceived safety.
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End-users

Municipal and regional prevention officers

Senior police officers

Municipal security managers

District security authorities

Expert teams — in regional and local institutions or service providers.

Timeline

November 2019 – January 2020

Use scenarios

27 January 2020

CCI DesignLab

February – March 2020

Tool Direction identified

April – September 2020

Tool development & prototyping

October – November 2020

Tool demonstration

5 May 2021

Local implementation workshop

21 October 2021

International implementation workshop

Ongoing

Implementation

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Research undertaken

The Tool was informed by a critical review of the scientific evidence-base and the development of theoretical concepts and practical use scenarios. In addition, the following research was conducted:

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01

Interviews with two police constables and two senior police officers responsible for a city district

02

Focus group with six municipal prevention officers

03

Interviews with two representatives of neighbourhood associations

04

Focus group with three researchers and one senior manager from the Barcelona Institute for Regional and Metropolitan Studies

Two scenarios were selected for use in the DesignLab. Using a structured creative process based on the CCI Feelings of Unsafety Lifecycle, ideas were generated for tackling feelings of insecurity related to the two scenarios. The results were analysed and concept directions identified.

Tool demonstration

The Tool was applied by prevention officers to the issue of 'narcopisos' — empty apartments in the old city of Barcelona being taken over by drug dealers.

The initial outbreak of citizen insecurity took place in January 2020 and manifested again during the Pandemic. Existing data relating to the demonstration area was compared, including police data; crime victimisation survey data; and calls to the 112 emergency call service.
Criminality (including occupied apartments where drug dealing took place) was notably reduced due to different actions and strategies.

Nevertheless, local residents felt overlooked by the institutions and believed that they were unsafe in their own neighbourhood. The Perception Matters Tool was used to identify the underlying problem — which was one of communication — and develop appropriate interventions.

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Implementation

Tool implementation activities during the CCI project

  • A local implementation workshop with the Catalan Municipalities was held on 5 May 2021. The 231 attendees were representatives from numerous municipalities in Catalonia.
  • An international implementation workshop was held on 21 October 2021 at the Efus Conference in Nice, France. The 21 attendees comprised LEAs and security professionals from Portugal and UK, and Catalonia.
  • Wider implementation of the Tool has been supported by dissemination at conferences: DPT 2021 in Germany; FISEG in Chile; and FFSU.

Tool implementation activities planned for the future

  • The Tool provides Catalonia with a means to better understand and address problems of insecurity, and will be used to address future emerging issues (see Ministry of Interior Tool webpage, here.)

Sources

01

Buil-Gil, D. Moretti , A., Shlomo, N, y Medina, J. (2021) “Worry about crime in Europe: A model-based small area estimation from the European Social Survey”. In European Journal of Criminology, Vol 18 (2), pages 274-298

02

Davey, C.L. and Wootton, A.B (2019) "Feelings of Insecurity Lifecycle model" in “PIM Toolkit 4: Report on feelings of insecurity – Concepts and models”. Deliverable D7.2 EU-funded Cutting Crime Impact (CCI) project, available from: www.cuttingcrimeimpact.eu.

03

Doran, B.J. y Burgess, M.B. (2011) Putting Fear of Crime on the Map. Investigating Perceptions of Crime Using Geographic Information Systems. New York, Dordrecht, Heidelberg, London. Springer.

04

Ferretti, F. Pozza, A. y Coluccia, A. (2018) “Urban safety: A re-reading of the sense of unsafety through individual and ecological dimensions”. In European Journal of Criminology, pages 1-22 (DOI 10.1177/147737081).

05

Guillén-Lasierra, F. (2021). “The fallacy of objective security and its consequences”. In International E-Journal of Criminal Sciences. (https://ojs.ehu.eus/index.php/inecs/article/view/22531)

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Policy Implications

Research to identify causal factors and appropriate solutions is key to addressing outbreaks of citizens' feelings of insecurity.

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Policymakers should support practitioners in understanding relationships between feelings of insecurity and specific situations and issues.

The Perception Matters Tool can support security policymakers and practitioners in understanding the range of responses available when addressing an outbreak of citizens' perceptions of insecurity.

Acknowledgements

Anna Almécija

Santi Herrero

Pere Boqué

Francesc Guillén

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