Security

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GUEST OBSERVATION
The central role of public spaces in the social, cultural, political and economic life of cities makes it crucial that they’re accessible to everyone. One of the most important qualities of accessible public spaces is safety. If people do not feel safe in a public space, they are less likely to use it, let alone linger in it.
Perceptions of safety are socially produced and socially variable. It is not simply the presence of crime – or “threatening environments” – that contributes to lack of safety or fear.
All sorts of measures are put in place to make public spaces safer, from design to policing. But when we consider the effectiveness of these measures, we always have to ask: whose safety is being prioritised?
Women and members of ethnic and sexual minorities are among those who experience particular kinds of threats, abuse and violence in public spaces.
If we don’t account for the social dimensions of safety, there’s a risk that measures designed to enhance safety will have the opposite effect for some urban inhabitants.
Safety for a privileged few?
There are many examples of safety measures that privilege the interests of some groups over others.
The gating of urban environments and the privatisation of public space allow the wealthy to buy a form of safety by separating themselves from the wider community. Such approaches aim to provide safety for the few, rather than the many. But this might actually add to people’s fear by creating a kind of urban border anxiety.
In architecture and planning, “crime prevention through environmental design” has gained traction as a way to enhance the safety and accessibility of public spaces. This school of thought suggests that spaces can be designed to reduce crime and enhance feelings of safety and security. Improving lighting and sight lines are examples of this.
These design principles are useful, but can only take us so far.
Design can certainly help to prevent some activities. But we need to ask: exactly what are we trying to prevent, where, and why are we trying to prevent it? Does it make our cities more just, for example, to design teenagers out of public spaces by blasting classical music or broadcasting ultrasonic frequencies that can annoy only their young ears?
Who misses out on feeling safe?
There are more banal, everyday examples of how public security measures can work to make some safe at the expense of others.
Consider the 2011 Transport for NSW “customer courtesy” campaign. The campaign, which placed posters on trains and train stations, sought to improve the “customer experience” by reducing the discomfort caused by “beastly behaviours” like loud talking and seat hogging.
These may cause discomfort for some public transport users, as surveys suggested. But many passengers are likely to be concerned about another “beastly behaviour” – racism. People from ethnic and religious minorities, especially women, too often experience racism, abuse and violence on public transport.
Not only do those customer courtesy campaigns fail to call out discrimination as unacceptable, they can unintentionally give licence to racist behaviour. Eyewitness videos have shown passengers speaking languages other than English being abused by other passengers who insist they should not have to listen to such speech.
Police use of “sniffer dogs” at train stations, public spaces and events also illustrates how security measures can be exclusionary. In New South Wales, well over half of all searches resulting from sniffer dog “hits” find no drugs on the person. And the locations in which sniffer dog operations have taken place mean that the young, the poor, ethnic minorities, Aboriginal people and LGTBQI communities seem more likely to be searched.
Police justify these operations on the grounds that they “send a message” to potential offenders, thereby enhancing public safety. But this can make people in these locations feel less, rather than more, safe.
Research in the LGTBQI community in Sydney in the early 2000s found: "Calls for greater numbers of local area police are as numerous … as complaints about their visibility and overbearing presence."
For members of this community, homophobic violence, not recreational drug use, threatened safe access to public space. And yet while people struggled to have the threat of homophobic violence taken seriously, large groups of police with sniffer dogs constantly patrolled their streets, clubs and festivals, making people feel less safe and more threatened.
Principles for social justice
So, how can we ensure that safety and security measures in public space actually create safety for all? Setha Low and I have offered a set of social justice principles for planning and policing of public spaces. These are:
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distribution and redistribution: are public spaces equally accessible to all, regardless of people’s income or where they live?
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recognition: are some identities and ways of being in the city unfairly denigrated or stigmatised? Is there recognition that urban inhabitants have different identities and cultures?
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encounter: do public spaces create opportunities for encounters across different identities, without discrimination and harassment?
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care and repair: are public spaces cared for, and are the resources for care and repair fairly distributed?
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procedural justice: is the planning of public spaces open to all in a democratic process?
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/93421/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1">Taking these principles into account can help us to avoid safety measures that have the perverse effect of reducing accessibility for some, and to approach safety in a way that makes the city more accessible and just for all.
Kurt Iveson, Associate Professor of Urban Geography, University of Sydney
This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com" target="_blank">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/to-create-safer-cities-for-everyone-we-need-to-avoid-security-that-threatens-93421" target="_blank">original article</a>.
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j.ballantyne1990-6AQqhLzZaK

To create safer cities for everyone, we need to avoid security that threatens: Kurt Iveson

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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.edu.au/content/57114/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1">
GUEST OBSERVER
Closed circuit street cameras have been sold to the community as a way of making us safer, reducing crime and discouraging anti-social behaviour.
But research into the Federal Government’s $50 million Safer Streets program shows its main effect has been unchecked proliferation of highly profitable commercial arrangements between governments and private firms, amid little evidence that it improves public safety.
The Tony Abbott-led government announced Safer Streets in 2014 to assist local councils finance the establishment of street camera systems, with a second round of funding unveiled last December.
Across Australia, 85 local councils received Safer Streets funding in the first round. Promoting the scheme during the Liberal Party’s 2013 election campaign, Bronwyn Bishop <a href="https://www.southcoastregister.com.au/story/1740109/coalition-pledges-cctv-funds/">said</a> the cameras would be a deterrent because people “know they are going to be caught”.
In 2014, Prime Minister Tony Abbott and then-Justice Minister Michael Keenan said: “All Australians have the right to feel safe and secure … and [this] program will help to achieve that.”
But while buttressing the Coalition’s national security agenda, Safer Streets has been criticised over a lack of evidence and political bias underpinning the funding policy.
In 2015 the Report of the Commonwealth National Audit Office was delivered following an inquiry into Safer Streets amid complaints that the funding program was <a href="https://www.propertyobserver.com.au/https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2014/08/02/cctv-installation-crime-prevention-or-friends-the-government/1406901600">“</a>pork barrelling<a href="https://www.propertyobserver.com.au/https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2014/08/02/cctv-installation-crime-prevention-or-friends-the-government/1406901600">”</a>.
The report was highly critical of the program with Safer Streets funding accessible to local councils strictly by invitation of the Government for the first round of grants.
Auditor General Ian McPhee found several “significant shortcomings” related to how the Attorney General’s Department conducted its eligibility checks, adding “the merit assessment process … was handled particularly poorly by the department”.
Safer Streets has been criticised for “a lack of transparency over its guidelines, its selection criteria, and ultimately, over which projects were chosen”.
Around 90 percent of first-round funding recipients were situated in Coalition federal seats. The second round of funding recipients, yet to be announced, is highly anticipated.
Safer Streets provided the Abbott Government with opportunities to cultivate grassroots support — or at least a perception of it — by requiring local councils to ceremoniously “accept” offers of funding.
Government MPs organised publicity, petitions and mobilised business chambers with “no strings” carrots of public subsidies. Buoyed by the support of business chambers they called upon taxpayers to finance the set-up and then the ratepayer to fund ongoing costs for CCTV, which have been exorbitant.
Safer Streets is part of a broader political-economic framework within which both electoral and commercial opportunities have been leveraged.
Internationally CCTV has played a significant role in the marketing of public areas as “clean” and “safe” in the efforts of local councils and business chambers to attract consumers, tourists and investment.
The Australian Security Industry Association Limited (ASIAL) notes expenditure on private security in Australia between 2012 and 2013 was almost $5 billion, of which $2.3 billion was spent on security devices, installation and monitoring. Australian Security Magazine claims “the electronic security market is forecast to experience double digit growth until 2020 and beyond”, concluding:
“The commercial argument for the use of security technologies over more traditional security measures has never been more valid.”
This prediction may be adequate considering the political climate. Demand for security tech and consulting has increased in light of the Coalition’s efforts to <a href="https://www.propertyobserver.com.au/https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2014/08/02/cctv-installation-crime-prevention-or-friends-the-government/1406901600">enlist</a> local councils as new customers via Safer Streets.
A consequence of government-funded CCTV has been the portrayal of street crimes within a broader news advertising matrix. In one example government-funded CCTV footage was streamed online via the national Fairfax Media network depicting an assault against a recently arrived refugee in Wollongong flanked by advertisements.
As one study stipulates the marketing of CCTV footage by news companies has drawn consumers into a series of inter-related commercial activities through multimedia platforms. The adoption of CCTV footage has resulted in news media becoming a significant conduit conveying the political and economic meanings affixed to street camera footage.
But while there is little research evidence that street cameras reduce crime, politicians widely promote CCTV an effective crime prevention technology, which has led to uncritical policy transfer. In fact, Safer Streets has prohibited councils from utilising the grant scheme to conduct evaluations.
The potential for being discredited by objective evidence may explain why there is no strong desire expressed by politicians for local councils to produce regular CCTV evaluations.
Only one local council out of 18 surveyed nationally in 2014 had collected crime statistics within the surveillance area — namely, Shoalhaven City Council - yet here crime rates actually increased after cameras were installed, defying the logic of proponents.
Affirming the Coalition’s commitment to the political economy of street cameras, one Liberal MP says he would stand up for the use of CCTV established under Safer Streets and opposed “slick and sleazy” challenges to them.
“If you are doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide. Kiama’s businesses wanted this and should be protected, and so should law-abiding citizens.” - Gareth Ward, Member for Kiama
Addressing the Australian Government’s 2015 metadata retention laws, Edward Snowden is sceptical of the “nothing to hide/fear” logic stating that people who say they don’t worry about their privacy because they have nothing to hide “is like saying I don’t care about free speech because I have nothing to say”.
But a powerful pro-CCTV discourse is entwined in the construction of many politicians’ credibility and their public identities. Challenging these political and economic commitments to street cameras with an evidence-based perspective is unlikely to sway their efforts.
Robert Carr is researcher, Western Sydney University and author for The Conversation. He can be contacted <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/robert-carr-266152" target="_blank">here</a>.
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