Sydney — Reframing violent crime

In 2012, the Kings Cross nightlife district in Sydney, Australia, had acquired a reputation for rampant drunken violence in the small hours of the morning.

City authorities took a hardline response, including “lockout” laws strictly restricting alcohol sales, which were eventually blamed for the closure of some businesses.

This approach treated innocent revellers as criminals, according to Rodger Watson, course director of the Masters of Creative Intelligence and Strategic Innovation at University of Technology Sydney (UTS).

“What that missed was [the fact that] these are our kids,” he said. Watson said the appropriate question was: “What do they need and how can we support them in achieving that in a safe way?”

This reframed approach — and the interventions it led to — came about because of a “pioneering and brave” policy development process, according to Watson, who previously worked as senior project and policy officer in the Department of Justice and Crime Prevention of New South Wales.

It was born out of frustration that “the current [crime prevention] paradigm wasn’t giving fruitful solutions and not responding to the complexity”, said Watson. The government decided to work with outside experts from the Designing Out Crime research centre, UTS. They prioritised identifying the “problem behind the problem” and developing evidence-based approaches which draw on other disciplines, rather than ineffective evidence-based "solutions", unsuited to new problems.

According to Watson, this collaborative effort led to the evolution of an “innovation ecosystem … where policymakers can go through an evidence-based problem-solving approach to innovate their way out of these tricky situations, rather than legislate as the default”.

The design team opted to see Kings Cross like a music festival. Festivals also see large numbers of drunken people in one place but have more amenities and less violent incidents. Distraction and Extraction were identified as core aspects of the event management used by music festivals to keep crowds happy and peaceful. In particular, transport infrastructure was improved to get people home faster so streets were less crowded – which meant fewer opportunities for violence.

Also introduced were safe spaces run by volunteers, who have helped de-escalate hundreds of potentially violent incidents and intervened in sexual harassment.

The most significant impact of the city’s approach, according to Watson, was laying the ground for the Open Sydney Policy, which encouraged the concept of nightlife as an economic opportunity, stimulating diverse business models with income other than alcohol sales, and relevant to local contexts.

This provided a clear alternative to viewing nightlife through the lens of crime and disorder. “The actions themselves were only ever the embodiment of that thinking,” he said.

Cape Town — Building Trust

Community dialogue is at the heart of Violence Prevention through Urban Upgrading (VPUU). The non-profit, based in Cape Town, takes a holistic approach to reduce crime.

South Africa suffers from crippling poverty and high rates of violent crime. The legacy of apartheid left significant social marginalisation and vulnerable communities which tend to mistrust the government.

In addition to planning the renewal of urban spaces, VPUU has a key role as an intermediary between the communities it serves and the public officials.

“Each community is unique, and has unique problems often to do with the power relationship between the citizens and the state,” said Michael Krause, CEO of VPUU.

The organisation has a dedicated team who initiate relationships with communities and work to listen and identify what their needs are and, crucially, build trust. A representative community leadership group is also set up to maintain a connection with VPUU over the course of the total project, which can take five years.

“We do an assessment and then we develop a vision, which is encapsulated in a community action plan,” said Krause. “Smaller projects flow from that, which the community can do directly, such as checking streetlights,” he added.

The smaller projects allow VPUU to assess the community response and see what works, and bigger interventions are introduced over time.

Advice based on the findings from VPUU’s work in the community is also given to local government, suggesting key areas for interventions to prevent crime and encourage social and economic development.

VPUU has "packages" of replicable model social and infrastructure interventions of various sizes. At the larger end, these include "active boxes", which appear regularly on common pedestrian routes.

The active box is a building, which has “some form of civic presence and some form of place management, such as a caretaker,” said Krause. It is elevated, serves as a “safe point” and will ideally be a purpose-built community centre, but other buildings such as churches can be used if resources are limited. The people working there are encouraged to practice “passive surveillance” he added.

Several active boxes, along with lighting and clear demarcation, can be established through communities along common pedestrian routes, giving residents safer paths.

Active boxes were among the measures implemented in Cape Town’s semi-informal Khayelitsha township by VPUU from 2006. A three-year evaluation study by the University of Cape Town recently found residents were 40 % less likely to be a victim of crime in a public space in a VPUU area, said Krause.

The age of the Khayelitsha project highlights a key challenge: time. “It takes 10 to 15 years to get to a tipping point [of behavioural change],” said Krause. VPUU projects require continuous political will and resources, and if these factors fall away, conditions in communities can actually deteriorate.

“That’s very important for the public sector to understand, don’t expect quick wins in two to three years, [in line with] funding cycles, you will do more damage than good,” said Krause.

Sandy Hook — Security in the community

One of the most devastating shootings in US history took place at Sandy Hook Elementary in 2012, killing 26 children and their teachers.

The school which opened in 2016 and now stands where the murders took place (the old building was demolished) is a colourful, light-filled space where education comes first, but also features an array of integrated security measures.

Engagement with local citizens was key to the project’s success, according to architect Jay Brotman.

“The most important part of the process was creating a collaborative group from the local community,” said Brotman. This School Building Advisory Committee was made of up parents, school staff, students and the emergency services.

While the wider community’s initial response was for the new site to be a “fortress”, Brotman’s team worked, through workshops with the committee, to persuade residents that such an establishment would not necessarily be safer and could adversely affect their children’s education.

“We knew as architects that was not the best environment for learning and for creating well-adjusted future generations,” said Brotman.

In addition to communicating the benefits of natural light and nature to children’s learning, Brotman stressed that schools should not be isolated from their communities.

The Sandy Hook design process included a security consultant, whose suggestions became manifested in CPTED (design principles for crime reduction) and often took on other purposes. For instance, a moat-like “rain garden” around the building serves as a security buffer but also as a student environmental project.

The school’s design was broken into layers. The first, the school’s outer perimeter, was not a “hard layer” but allowed clear observation of its surroundings. The next layer, the car park, was organised to keep visitors in a specific area, directing the focus of security monitoring.

There are just three entrances to the school — only one is public — with two sets of doors, with access controlled by security guards to “create a really secure entrance vestibule,” said Brotman.

Inside the building, security is focused on delaying potential intruders. Doors are on a magnetic release and can be simultaneously closed if a panic button is pushed. Each classroom has a “safe zone” which has room for the entire class out of view of the windows or door.

Other security measures include toughened window glass, CCTV cameras and hardened walls.

While the threat of a mass shooter naturally looms larger in the minds of parents, the school’s open design — with few blind spots — also aims to reduce other, more common types of violence. “If students are more observable, bullying is less likely,” says Brotman.

While certain features, such as surveillance technology, cost more, building Sandy Hook cost around the same price as that of any other school in Connecticut, according to Brotman. “we designed the parking lot in a certain [CPTED] way, but the amount of asphalt and everything else is the same,” he said. — Will Worley