I've always been frustrated by top-down, bureaucratic logjams and academic abstractions in crime prevention practice. SafeGrowth counters that by targeting neighborhood assets, partnering community groups with police, and using prevention science. 

I presented SafeGrowth last December at a public summit in the city of Alexandria, Louisiana. Alexandria has now set the stage to do exactly that. They call it Safe Alex.

Alexandria has been aiming to cut it's high crime rate for a few years. Two weeks ago Mayor Jacques Roy launched the Safe Alex program at a public forum I helped facilitate. It was an exciting event with terrific response. A new team of local residents and experts will lead the charge. Still, the way ahead will not be without hurdles,

One hurdle arose in a newspaper editorial. "Safe Alex attempts to seed a new sense of responsibility in a crime-ridden neighborhood,"it says, "and then, over time, grow different behavior to achieve new, positive results."

True. 

It concludes: "The idea is laudable, but it will not take root under current conditions. When a house is on fire, you call firefighters and pump water until it's out. The police should lead the crime prevention effort, not the community." 

Not quite. 

Unlike a house fire, high crime neighborhoods rarely combust from simple factors, like bad wiring. They combust from years of social and economic decay, family breakdown, gangs, drugs, and so forth. Police can momentarily tamp the flames with enforcement. 

Yet enforcement is only the first step. In an Op-Ed response last week I replied, "The faith in targeted interventions and zero tolerance is a case of myth over the reality. Cookie cutter strategies do not work." 

You can find my Op-Ed response HERE. (Sorry, they removed it from the site!)

Police may even sprinkle some water on combustible causes with situational prevention or problem-solving tactics. Of course as Gerry Cleveland said in a guest blog two years ago, aside from enforcement, police are not the only one's who can lead that. 

So too can functional neighborhood groups partnered with the police. Especially if taught how, those groups are more familiar with local assets to remove the causes of crime combustibility. And they are more likely to take personal, long-term ownership in the solution.

That is the prize on which we must keep our eyes.

In a November speech Gladwell describes Roseto in which one researcher:

"realized he’d stumbled on a place where the sense of community was so strong, and so powerful, and so supportive, that it enabled people who lived there to effectively deal with the stress of modern life and live a kind of magical life. They had created community bonds that were so extraordinary that they were able to overcome the pattern of illness and mortality in American life."

It is a great story. It is all about the very things most important to community developers, prevention specialists, police, and anyone else interested in safe places.

Gladwell is clearly an ally of what we are trying to achieve. Read Gladwell's speech HERE.

I spoke to Elisabeth Miller, a planner friend from Saskatoon, this week who told me about the pending publication of some CPTED and Design Guidelines for developers and architects. She is a planner with the city of Saskatoon and last fall I researched and crafted these design guidelines, which Elisabeth and I then wrote into a Guideline document, from best practice around the world. 

Could a similar approach work at a larger scale, for example in urban zoning?

If you study different types of zoning it is clear that most forms of zoning align with architectural design guidelines. Then I realized there is a problem with zoning.

In Death and Life of Great American Cities Jane Jacobs says, "No amount of police can enforce civilization where the normal, causal enforcement of it has broken down."

Jacobs used the ideas of territoriality and social capital as part of her equation for safe streets. Unfortunately early CPTED used only half of that equation - urban design. 

As all new students of CPTED soon learn, basic 1st Generation CPTED involves urban design and architecture to reduce crime opportunities. There are three components:

1. We See You: Natural surveillance is lighting and landscaping that puts eyes on the street. The purpose is to see offenders or to signal to offenders they will be seen. 

2. You Are In Our Place: Access control is gates, fences, roadway barriers, or walkway placement to limit the number of people into or out of an area. It allows people to see who is entering or to signal to visitors - we live/work here. 

3. You Can't Get Away With That Here: Territorial reinforcement divides public space to semi-private or semi-public areas - for example, paving patterns and floral landscaping to demarcate a building entry. Clean-ups are another way to signal someone cares. These make it difficult for offenders to offend with impunity. 

All three components hinge on one simple (and debatable) idea: It's our turf and we care. Design guidelines fit perfectly into this part of the equation. Zoning – not so much.


Here's the problem 

In the absence of social capital, territoriality doesn't just happen. It is not necessarily true that people care simply because their space encourages it. 

There are plenty of places where access control, good lighting, and natural surveillance provide a very poor sense of territory. Urban mega-projects like sports stadiums and casinos are notorious for plenty of crime (pick pocketing and robbery come to mind). 

Large box stores are another example where there may be many eyes on those streets, all sorts of branding, signs, and territorial markers and yet crime can flourish (auto theft comes to mind). 

Territoriality can help but it cannot ensure crime is absent. The intimate personal space of a residential living room or bedroom is already "owned" and controlled yet that is precisely where most domestic violence occurs. 

The fact is territoriality does not work without social capital. 

Next: How zoning can help.

I walked around Toronto's city hall yesterday. It reminded me of the unnecessary conflict between environmental sustainability and safety. This is particularly curious given the greening of urban streetscapes in recent years.

The emerging dialogue about security, safety, and sustainability is important. Last year the Built Environment journal published a series of articles on the topic. This year there will be presentations at the International CPTED Conference.

Environmental sustainability rarely makes it into CPTED recommendations. Practitioners over-trim trees or over-light walkways like a floodlit night-time game at a stadium. 

Removing trees, paving land, and burning excessive energy are not sustainable. They are not the only options for safety. Being blind to this is not only unfortunate. As anyone who reads science knows (or has read any legitimate environmental story in the past decade) climate change is real. Ignoring it is unethical. 

It need not be so. 

There are plenty of safe options. Urban gardens humanize vacant land, for example in Boston and Philadelphia. Live walls prevent graffiti. All which brings me to Toronto's new city hall. More specifically, the recent opening of the massive green roof and public garden. 

Trees, shrubs and landscapes now cover once desolate slabs of cement sameness. Sitting areas offer respite and ample emergency phones provide access to security. The greenery enhances the iconic structure of the building. Why, I wonder, wasn't it done when the structure was built? The advantage of retrospect perhaps? 

Best of all I watched people taking respite from the busy streets below. Legitimate "eyes on this street" provides what Oscar Newman called defensible space.

Safety and sustainability can become part of our civic DNA if we learn how to make it part of the CPTED and SafeGrowth message. 

There are cynics who think nothing changes and nothing works, especially in regards to crime. 

They are wrong. Things change and some things work. Case in point - the New Orleans neighborhood of Hollygrove.

A year ago I wrote about Hollygrove where we introduced SafeGrowth. New Orleans balances a famous, and infamous, history. A high crime rate and the Hurricane Katrina tragedy tilt one way while Bourbon Street delights and French Quarter cuisine tilt another. 

Then there is Hollygrove - among the poorest and highest crime neighborhoods - a place where a quarter of the population never returned post-Katrina (exacerbating problems of abandoned, boarded-up homes).

I've just returned from Hollygrove. I am very impressed. 

Much was already underway in the Hollygrove community by the time SafeGrowth showed up. Then my talented colleagues at Louisiana AARP, along with some terrific residents and service providers, thought they'd try SafeGrowth to improve conditions.

What happened?

Early days were difficult with many setbacks - a recent double homicide being the most notable. Obviously much work remains though wins seem more frequent and long-lasting (sustainable) than last year. 

Community activities are on the rise. A new walking club is forming and Night Out Against Crime events are bigger than ever. I talked to residents who told me they now clean their own streets and pay for their own streetlights when they cannot get the city to do so (all the more remarkable considering this is an impoverished neighborhood, not a middle-class suburb!)

A few much needed access fences are now in place. The week I arrived residents were celebrating removal of a blighted and abandoned home. New cultural groups are emerging (the hallmark of 2nd Generation CPTED) such as the Hollygrove "Originals" who raise funds for social events in the neighborhood. 

This week AARP Louisiana staff helped organize community planning sessions and safety audits. We walked the streets and surveyed conditions with residents, many whom I met last year (their passion and perseverance still continue to impress me). Also present in the workshops were police, clergy, and service providers. 

On the final day planning sessions we targeted a central street and some open-space areas. I was amazed at the inventiveness and practicality of the proposals for moving forward.

It takes decades of neglect to sour communities into poor, crime-infested neighborhoods. That's why rehabilitating them takes time. 

It's clear to me that in high crime communities like Hollygrove, there are three legs of neighborhood turnaround: 

1. Coordinated and collaborative help from service agencies
2. Coherent, integrated planning process (e.g. SafeGrowth), and
3. The momentum, passion and persistence to carry on.

Clearing out cabinets with old files can be like a mystery adventure. Here's one mystery I came across this week.

In the bustling heyday of 1920s Chicago a revolutionary new theory of crime prevention emerged from the University of Chicago. Tapping into the flowering of biological ecology theory, sociologists Robert Park and Ernest Burgess crafted a social ecology of crime to explain and prevent juvenile delinquency. 

Park and Burgess opened a theoretical door that writers like Jane Jacobs walked through a half century later. Whatever came of that early work?

In 1934 Clifford Shaw tested the theory in one of the first ever community crime prevention projects - the Chicago Area Projects (CAP). According to an article in the FBI Bulletin it was Shaw's belief that:

"…the solution to Chicago's gang problem meant reaching out to the gangs and redirecting them into the conventional life of the community. His method, which emphasized a "bottom up," proactive approach, contrasted greatly with traditional, "top down" methods, which stressed punitive or repressive measures to control delinquency."

Pretty impressive stuff. Sounds similar to SafeGrowth. No surprise there. Many modern community development programs owe much to Shaw and the CAP. 

What is surprising is the absence of published results. What happened to that project? Volumes of criminology literature exists today due to, in opposition to, or as adjuncts to the ecology of crime theory. Not so for the results of CAP field work. 


WHAT HAPPENED?

One of the most famous prevention projects in history has no evaluations? What?

Then I came across another article in my file cabinet. 

It turns out CAP WAS successful, especially in Russell Square Park, one of the key sites of gang activity targeted by the program. A RAND report in the 1990s re-evaluated the CAP. Apparently Shaw's early studies from 1932-1937 found delinquency in Russell Square dropped in half, while it did not decline in surrounding neighborhoods. Amazingly, an article in the FBI Bulletin found that, 50 years later, the CAP is still on-going. In fact it has expanded! 

If there was ever a landmark story emerging from prevention history, this is it! Why then didn't Shaw publish evaluations? 

When I read through the studies in my cabinet I saw that he did. Control groups. Random assignment. The whole bit. He did evaluate it.

Then, after awhile, he didn't. 


ECONOMIES OF SCALE

By the 1950s Shaw was telling researchers he didn't think it was even possible to prove statistically CAP worked. Why? 

The answer from what I can see is frustration. Shaw got fed up trying to demonstrate with increasing levels of statistical proof that CAP worked, even though the Russell Square research showed just that. After all, his team and the residents themselves saw positive results. 

It is an irony of history that the rigors of academic evaluation frustrate on one hand, yet provide the very publications from which future practitioners learn lessons of success and failure. It is why some evaluation is important but too much, not so much. 

What Shaw discovered was prevention economies of scale. It is possible to spend more time and money satisfying the rigors of evaluation than actually preventing crime. 

I suspect Shaw uncovered what Stanley Leiberson said in the 1990s: "we can be confident that all theories can be shown to be false—simply because it is impossible to specify all possible conditions and, therefore, a literal interpretation of what a theory implies can be taken out of context and lead to a negative result."

In 2005 sociologist Max Travers came to the same conclusion - social science evaluation is not a scientific discipline that produces objective findings.

Evaluation is important. But preventing crime is the point. As long as the former informs the latter in the service of practitioners, we're on track. Otherwise, as Shaw discovered, we've run off the ROTO rails. 

What works? Community development, careful direction of municipal services, and involving local residents in safety and livability...that works. 

Mystery solved.

CPTED prevents crime by designing defensible space into places - what 1st Generation CPTED calls territoriality. It is a strategy that doesn't always happen with design. It needs help.

Walkability was my theme this past week. A walkable street helps encourage neighborhood vitality, which in turn helps folks take ownership of their public domain. Walkability is the first step towards territoriality and defensible space.

This week I was reminded of another by one of my Philadelphia students in a SafeGrowth course run by the Community Safety Initiatives folks at LISC; The revitalization of public space by citizens.

Betsy Casanas sent me the following story regarding how to do what 2nd Generation CPTED calls culture-making:

Our project is called "Reclaiming Vital Spaces" We have done so much already in the past couple of weeks. We've built 8 new beds with a few guys in an adjudicated program, We've done a workshop with one of the neighboring schools and created permanent art work for the fence with a 3rd grade class. We've just received 2 benches from a neighboring center who is interested in having their kids participate in the garden. 

We have organized a group of neighbors to take over several of the boxes and grow there own food. In the coming weeks we will build a steel sculptural fence because we can't afford to buy a real fence. I think this one will be much more amazing anyways. We did get a small grant that will help us buy a tool shed, tools, benches and picnic tables. 

How, one wonders, does such a SafeGrowth-like approach ever start in the first place? Betsy filled me in:

As a reaction to the social conditions in North Philadelphia in 2007 artists Betsy Casanas and Pedro Ospina co-founded “Semilla (seed) Arts Initiative” a grassroots initiative that uses art as a catalyst for social change and artistic collaborations as a means of empowering individuals and communities. Semilla’s goal is to unite the community by actively involving them in the process of physically transforming their own neighborhood, exposing them to solutions and possibilities. 

I'm very impressed by some of the things I've seen in Philly during this SafeGrowth project. I can hardly wait to see what they come up with next month when we return. 

Most encouraging of all is Betsy's conclusion:

The vitality of any community can be found in the strengths and stability of its members and their ability to overcome the complexity of today.

Yes! In a nutshell, that's it! 

If walkability is the first step to safety, overcoming complexity is the second. 

Community vitality is found in the ability of it's members to overcome the complexity of today! 

Thank you to Betsy, Pedro, and their dedicated kin for reminding us where to find yet another key to open safe places.

We talked about organizing neighborhoods, how SafeGrowth might work there, and virtual e-networking. We talked about more extensively diagnosing neighborhood crimes and mapping fears. We talked about how to bring in more community and expanding this dialogue.

Is this the answer? Not completely. But shared dialogue is how these things get started.

Read the biography Jane Jacobs: Urban Visionary, about Jacobs' early days at community meetings. Those meetings decades ago started an urban revolution that transformed for the better our thinking about urban life.

To me the Jackson meetings felt like that - confusing, exciting, necessary. I saw - yet again - a thirst not easily quenched by retribution, fixing broken windows, nor by extinguishing self-interest crime.

It is quenched by building an authentic sense of community in people's lives along with a healthy neighborhood to support it. That, ultimately, is the point.

Rational Choice and CPTED

Practitioners of CPTED rarely talk about the theories beneath their prevention method. Yet theories matter, especially Rational Choice Theory which some describe as the foundation for CPTED. I recently read a New York Times article about how self-interest isn't everything. It reminded me of Rational Choice Theory. 

I like the idea that self-interest and personal choice matter when it comes to crime. Yet I do not believe rational choice is the primary way to sustain safer communities. It might help us prevent opportunity crimes like joyriding and burglary with CPTED and situational prevention. After all, better lighting can deter burglars. Locked garages can deter car thieves. 

​But it takes Herculean effort to stretch rational choice to explain wife battering, racially motivated assaults, or heat-of-the-moment violence. For those crimes we must look elsewhere for answers. Rational choice, and 1st Generation CPTED, has limits. 

Why should we care? Why can't we prevent crime with rational choice and self-interest and leave it at that?

In the NY Times Robert Frank says "traditional economic models assume that people are self-interested in the narrow sense." We reap rewards in order to motivate actions. The choices we make are rational in the sense that there is something to gain and we weigh the benefits. Everyone has the right to choose their own future, so the idea goes. 

But, Frank points out, there are a few snags.

First, the "right" to a free choice is quite a different matter than self-interest. Rights are legal creations. Self-interest is slave to a much deeper, psychological master. We may all have the right to choose but whether we do so is a matter of everyday real life. 

Then there is the sticky problem of actual versus expected consequences. All actions end up in some consequence and people will find self-interest in the most innocuous ways. Consider the panhandler. Choice 1: Give the panhandler coin to stop pestering. But that has a short lifespan and it will not solve root problems like substance abuse and mental illness. Choice 2: Withhold coin believing the panhandler will seek alternatives for more reputable income. But that might involve getting robbed by one of those alternatives – that’s clearly not in your self-interest. 

Self-interest believers claim weighing the benefits between #1 and #2 is how we make rational choices. Unfortunately, as with panhandling, we can never know all the facts to make an informed choice. We must select within limits. When that happens, self-interest can get “bounded” by so many limits it becomes irrelevant. (Indeed bounded rationality is in vogue with game theorists).

The fact is, people do things for motives beyond self-interest. Some volunteer in community affairs for little reward. Are altruistic feelings their reward? To make sense of rational choice in crime you must look outside criminology. 


Shifting self interest

A good place to look is the work of Gary Becker, who won the 1992 Nobel Prize for upgrading rational choice theory and Albert Hirschman's 1982 book Shifting Involvements. Both claim self-interest is important, but it waxes and wanes. As people get what they want - such as higher standards of consumption - they discover they must work harder to maintain those standards. This creates a cycle of more stuff with higher standards. The cycle continues, increasing stress and decreasing satisfaction. At some point, says Hirschman, there is a tipping point when people become disenchanted with their self-interest motives.

These tipping points create periods of altruistic behavior, volunteerism and social involvement. Some people shift away from self-interest behavior, even if for a short time. Self-interest, it turns out, is perishable with the right conditions.

When do social tipping points occur? Remember the political chaos of the Cold War and President Kennedy's maxim "think not what your country can do for you"? It happened then! Today we face economic chaos - a world-wide recession, millions of layoffs, declining stocks, and failed businesses! 

What we need today in troubled neighborhoods isn’t an understanding of how we reduce self-interest, as helpful that might be in the short haul. What we need is an understanding of how to renew interest in civic affairs to get troubled neighborhoods activated over the long haul.

​Timely news from Montreal. Just as I blog about graffiti problems andsolutions in recent months, a success story emerges in MacLean's, Canada's national magazine. 

Prevention NDG is a community organization in Montreal working to prevent crime, especially graffiti. While tackling tagging, they have struck a balance between paint-outs, murals, and education. Among other strategies, they also hire graffiti artists to paint murals to deter graffiti tags. Taggers will seldom, if ever, tag a mural. The Montreal Gazette article (and photo above) says it all. 

Says one of the community workers at NDG: We also believe that it takes a multi-pronged approach to deal with this issue: removal, sensitization and prevention. We try to sensitize citizens on the importance of cleaning it quickly themselves (if they are able), however many home and apartment owners feel that it is the City's responsibility.

And therein lies the crux of the problem. Getting local folks to take responsibility. Getting them to shake off their dependency habits. Depending on someone else to solve their own problem.

That is why the work of community organizers like Wendy Sarkissian (scroll down), Jim Rough, and Mark Lakeman is so important. They are the activators. Activators of neighbor action. Activators of local ownership. 

The activators, their skill-set, and their toolbox! That's where we must begin.

​I’ve been working in a neighbouring community for the past few weeks and have marvelled at how privileged I am to live in a vibrant place with a great sense of community. Because when there is no sense of community or one that is shot through with stigma, prejudice and sexism, it’s very dispiriting. It’s dispiriting even to hear people talking about their community.

A few days ago I was speaking to some local women in that community. We had never met though they were all friends and colleagues. Within half an hour of talking about life in their community, three of the eight women were in tears. They told stories that chilled my blood; that made me shake with anger: of men in the local pub (even the publican) showing photos of local teenage girls having sex. Sharing images on their Blackberries in the pub. Men with daughters just their age. 

They told stories of a good police woman and others unable to assist in domestic violence situations. No safe houses or refuges. Women sleeping under the bridge. Deep-seated racism and sexism, as well as a deep local antipathy to newcomers. Stories of government indifference to the needs of women, isolated rural folk and older people. It was truly appalling.

In my community engagement work, I often speak about social capital and the need for community capacity building. I can learn a lot without leaving home. In my own community of Nimbin (population 330), we have social capital by the truckload. And what’s important is that it’s not just relationships with family and familiars that count. Its wide-ranging networks of activism, green politics, Left and anarchist politics, feminists, ecologists, Permaculturists, hippies, communitarians, cannabis law reformers, peace activities, activists of all descriptions... We are many communities, not simply our tiny geographical one. 

​Preparing to go to dinner to celebrate the birth of a new book, I put on my track pants and ugg boots [women's sheepskin boots]. I find an old, almost threadbare but still warm shawl. No need to dress for dinner in the winter in Nimbin. (One day last winter, deep into my writing, I headed to the local café in the morning for a good coffee. An hour into the newspapers and a second cup, I looked own to discover that I was wearing my bedroom slippers! Nobody noticed or cared.)

Acceptance of difference is essential to community capacity and community safety. I believe that when we shun strangers and emphasise “stranger danger” policies, we make people “other”. The women I spoke with felt that they were "other" in their own community. There was another, dominant, culture operating in their community and they were not part of it. 

But, I reminded them, “We hold up half the sky.” 

Not that sky, apparently.

There are many ways of being different. For community safety to flourish, we need to embrace all of those ways. Sometimes a small backwoods community – like mine – can offer some suggestions.

But then there are the security cameras in Nimbin, which the merchants love. They begged for them

And that’s another story...

Wendy's forthcoming book SpeakOut describes techniques directly relevant to the SafeGrowth model.

This week I chatted with my very dedicated Houston SafeGrowth folk working on their projects. They were looking for crime stats and maps. Nowadays such things are online in most cities. In Houston the police stats and local media crime trackers are both freely available. 

Information gathering is frequently overlooked while developing solutions to crime. I cringe when I see unsupported assumptions guiding actions. So with their risk assessment underway, the Houston SafeGrowthers are doing an excellent job of getting their stories just right. 

Interestingly, over the years I've learned that, by itself, information gathering is insufficient, a possible flaw in the fashionable evidence-based prevention and policing programs. 

Part of the problem is what Toffler calls obsoledge – obsolete knowledge. Knowledge is always changing, especially knowledge about safety and our ideas on how to improve it. As we gain a fact, it is already obsolete and incomplete. As any crime analyst will tell you, nowhere is this truer than in crime stats. Over the years I have seen many evidence-based strategies create an echo chamber of misinformation.

​While evidence is important, the problem is our belief in common sense and how we use that evidence to lead others to solutions. Leadership being the operative word.

We use the term “common sense” believing it a practical way to think about getting things done. But beneath common sense are a bunch of assumptions leading to contrived solutions that don’t get things done. Solutions like solving crime with incarceration, more cops, or cameras. I wrote about Zimring’s book Crime Decline and Waller’s book Less Law, More Order to tackle some of that misinformation.

Perhaps a better way to proceed is to use Radical Common Sense.

Futurist Marilyn Ferguson says Radical Common Sense is accepting we cannot solve our deepest problems through traditional ways or wishful thinking. We must learn the lessons of modern biology; a natural world that works more through altruism and cooperation (live and let live) than by competition (every man for himself). It means we accept the criminal justice system for the adversarial, blunt tool that it is and instead see our future in cooperating, sharing best practices, and accepting that our fate is tied to that of others. 

Radical Common Sense is leadership based on our ability to teach others, ourselves and our ability to change accordingly. Who does Radical Common Sense in our line of work? 

My recent favorites include Jim Rough and his wisdom councils and Mark Lakeman and his city repair movement. Each have questioned basic assumptions and learned to change their view. They identify the consequences of their solutions from many different sides, but they do their reasoning in collaboration with those in the community, not only from a lab, ivy hall, or computer screen. 

​Here's the thing; What characterizes these Radical Common Sensers is how they minimize their time in regret or complaint. As Ferguson says, every event is a lesson to them and every person a teacher. That, of course, is the classic definition of a grassroots, community leader. It's also how we create successful SafeGrowth practice and safer neighborhoods. 

The not-so-hidden agenda is the conviction that leadership must become a grassroots phenomenon if our societies are to thrive. If that strikes you as unlikely, consider first of all that nothing else is likely to work. And secondly, be aware that people already secretly suspect that they are capable of taking charge. [Ferguson, 2005, Aquarius Now: Radical Common Sense].

​Toronto or...

Not long ago Winnipeg, Canada was listed by a national magazine as one of the highest crime cities in the country, especially car theft. 

Read MacLean's Magazine article

I've been many times to Winnipeg and I'm always amazed how a place can feel so very different than the what the media and the stats tell us. 

As we've seen so many times in this blog, stats tell only a very small part of the picture. Proof: One of my talented SafeGrowth colleagues in Winnipeg, Brody Grusko, is launching some exciting new work in that city. He posted a SafeGrowth entry in their city website with some feedback. Looks like there are excellent opportunities to expand neighbourhood governance and City Repair Projects.

Brody's blog entry

I especially thought his chart was one of the more interesting diagrams I have seen for describing the SafeGrowth methodology.

Brody is coordinator of the Winnipeg Committee for Safety. It's a pretty dynamic group. They are worth keeping an eye on. If you haven't seen their website, check it out. 
​
Winnipeg Committee for Safety site

​One version of crime prevention is to hunt around for the latest program and try it out. Like a teen shopping for clothes, popular fashion dictates choice. Cost comes second. Many of the prevention programs we see today result from the most recent academic or policy fashion. They are impervious to cost and, to stretch the metaphor, they are silent on effectiveness.

Too many crime prevention programs are adopted as though one size fits all. They are effective or ineffective depending on where, on what, and how they are applied. Few have actually been tested for effectiveness with any scientific rigor.

It is like medicine that waits for symptoms and then looks for specific treatments. The more sophisticated doctor is more holistic, working in partnership with the patient to build overall health and wellness, rather than waiting for symptoms to arise.

SafeGrowth is such an approach in crime prevention. It is a 21st Century holistic form of collaborative community development. SafeGrowth works directly with residents, transferring skills and knowledge to the place they are most needed, within troubled neighbourhoods. It also applies to existing safe neighbourhoods looking to innoculate their community from disorder and delinquency.

Example: A large cluster of high rise apartment buildings - the San Romanoway project - becomes the subject of a multi-year program to address crime and disorder. Housing 4,000 residents, many of whom are new immigrants and single parents, the project has a history of problems with crime. They are surrounded by gangs, drugs and poverty of the notorious Jane/Finch suburbs in north Toronto. For decades conditions for the 60,000 residents in Jane/Finch worsen and grow into one of Canada's highest crime communities.

From 2000 to 2001 a research team led by Ross McLeod from Intelligarde and myself from AlterNation conducted research and crafted a SafeGrowth neighbourhood redevelopment plan. From 2001 to 2009 the Greenwin Property Management group led by Kevin Green, along with local residents formed the San Romanoway Revitalization Association, led by director Stephnie Payne. They immediately began implementing tailored strategies they selected for themselves. Community gardens, parenting classes, area cleanups, better lighting, improved management practices, social and recreational programs for kids, and others began the process. Fundraising was done locally and government, private corporations, and philanthropic groups all contributed.

Most recently San Romanoway has added new tennis courts and tennis camps from Tennis Canada, and a new cineplex movie theatre donated by the Cineplex Corporation within the apartment project - the first of its kind in Canada. They also have opened a new recording studio in which local kids create their own rap songs for public sale.

Crime at San Romanoway has plummeted, more residents are engaged in community life, and fear has decreased. While conditions in the wider Jane-Finch area are unchanged, San Romanoway shows us how the SafeGrowth model for neighbourhood building represents the future of 21st Century crime prevention.

The full SafeGrowth story will be reported this fall in a special issue of the Built Environment journal: Security versus Safety: How to Deliver Less Crime and More Sustainable Design.

The Built Environment journal website

After reading the Less Law, More Order book mentioned below, a question came to mind. How do we actually do the crime prevention planning the author mentions? Then I thought of that old song by rockers April Wine: Doin it right (on the wrong side of town). 

Picture this: A northern / mid-western city of 250,000 residents. A beautiful river winding through town with downtown redevelopment on some streets and downtown crime on others. Sound similar to anywhere-ville? Except for one thing. This city is rapidly moving forward with SafeGrowth like no other city. That city is Saskatoon, Canada.

Spending time in Saskatoon this past week reminds me how old style CPTED can evolve into a much more advanced practice. It is far beyond the one-time crime prevention initiatives, crime prevention commissions, task forces, and well ahead of CPTED planning guidelines in other cities. 

Elisabeth Miller, senior city planner, has been working to integrate a SafeGrowth style planning method with their Local Area Planning (LAP). Her powerpoint from last year's ICA conference tells us how they are doing it

See Elisabeth's description of SafeGrowth in Saskatoon

My favorite line from her presentation: Unfortunately more education needed to be done as the “Let’s CPTED that” started to become a perceived solution to a number of problems….particularly for City Councilors that were being questioned by constituents.

While they still use the term CPTED, when you look at their description you see they are much more advanced. Click on their city website and see for yourself. Even there you'll see the link to their LAP method.

See the Saskatoon web description 

Community safety audits, crime mapping, CPTED surveys, community participation sessions, neighbourhood by neighborhood annual reports. They now do it all. But they are beginning to do it using a coherent neighborhood by neighborhood planning style, with local participation at every level.

Saskatoon is among the first municipalities that truly get that safety cannot be relegated to checklists and police CPTED surveys. It must be a full player in the urban development and planning process. 

Like they say in the song: 
Go rev up your chevy, put your gas foot down
We’re doin’ it right on the wrong side of town

​My SafeGrowth students in Ohio and in Saskatchewan are working this month to come up with SafeGrowth strategies in their respective communities. The student teams are doing some terrific project work they will report back in a month. 

I've been chatting with them online lately and it strikes me that as community developers and crime prevention specialists we need much better knowledge about how to get residents working together. Just as we are not experts in lighting engineering - yet in CPTED we recommend better lighting - so too should we make recommendations about intelligent local decision-making and sensible neighborhood governance. 

Getting organized, transferring skills and smart prevention strategies are all for naught if we cannot sustain them within the neighborhood. Competent and balanced neighborhood decision-making is the master narrative for safe communities in the future.

Of course it's unlikely we'll be expert in neighborhood governance very soon. Knowledge comes from educating ourselves. For example, within traditional CPTED programs community-organizing tactics are little more than a worn cliche (if they are discussed at all). So we have much to learn.

And too many disenfranchised people are simply too afraid, desperate, or worn out from the rigors of daily life to leap into active projects. But, as the previous posts on this blog show, there has been SafeGrowth success already. Clearly something works.

So where do we start?

I came across this VLOG with community organizer Jim Rough from Washington State. Jim is a famous community trainer and creator of the dynamic facilitation and choice-creation method. He teaches them around the world. He also created the neighborhood decision-making strategy called the Wisdom Council.

The year before last I interviewed Jim on his TV show about these strategies. Here are a few ideas on how we can move forward.
​
Click here to watch Jim Rough talk about Wisdom Councils

My friends in Seattle area recently showed me terrific work they are doing to turn troubled neighborhoods around. Sustainable Ballard and White Avenue come to mind. Last month I visited Tacoma (see my February 4 blog "Tacoma's Moon Shot"). I saw equally impressive things going on there. Then I was shown a weekend food lineup area for homeless under an overpass. Fences control access. It seems clean. But under an overpass? 

I thought of the depression. Consider Seattle's shantytown of the 1930s. 

See Hooverville in the 1930s

It raises the whole issue of the homeless as I've written before (February 22, "Pain and Wasting in Vancouver").

Are shantytowns getting worse in this worsening economy?

There is an excellent New York times article about this very problem called North American Shantytowns. 

Read New York Times article

With all the progress in places like Seattle we should not forget the horrors of the Great Depression. 

This must not happen again.

My colleague Severin Sorensen has put out an excellent blog and book on this topic called Economic Misery and Crime Waves. 

​See Sorensen's blog

We must not let this happen again.

Here's a shocker that shouldn't shock. But it does.

Have you noticed how some of the most beautiful cities in the world suffer from some of the worst graffiti? And have you noticed how waves of ugly graffiti signal undercurrents of social problems throughout a city?

I recently spent time in Victoria, BC...certainly one of the most beautiful smaller urban places anywhere. It has historic architecture, lively street life, interesting districts like Chinatown the Inner Harbour, and a thriving tourist business. Yet in recent years it has been hit with thousands of graffiti tags. I drove from one end of the city to the other and no places were spared. 

This was not the political or street art expression you see in some places. It was felt-marker pen scribbles and spray paint vandalizing post boxes, telephone poles, street signs and benches. The city is launching a campaign to tackle it this summer. They have their work cut out for them.


PAINT-OUTS?

Let's hope their prevention strategies don't obsess on graffiti paint-outs as the sole answer. Paint-outs are a beautification tactic from 1st Generation CPTED and they have a role. But they only go half-way. Kind of like eating cake without the icing. Yuk.

Prevention strategies must also integrate the neighbourhood-building strategies of 2nd Generation CPTED like those we teach in SafeGrowth.

Years ago I recall visiting another beautiful city - Sydney, Australia - where I saw the same kind of blight. It was just prior to the 2000 Olympics and I did media interviews commenting on the profusion of graffiti. I asked what kind of face Sydney was presenting to the world. It did get front page coverage but I doubt it triggered any specific action.

However, there was a significant anti-graffiti clean-up program prior to the Olympics and according to accounts, it made a big difference. I'll be in Sydney this winter and am anxious to see if those efforts were sustained 2nd gen CPTED strategies or whether they faded into a shade of spray paint.


CAN VICTORIA LEARN FROM SYDNEY?

That is where Victoria finds itself today. Each year the Canadian government releases urban crime statistics showing how Victoria is in the Top Ten worst for Canadian cities that size (about 250,000). Victoria's Crime Rates

While it is still a beautiful and magnificent city, like everywhere it has problems. Clearly, graffiti is not the among the most serious.

But graffiti does signal a particular cue about a place. It sends a message. Some graffiti might be artistic expression. But more positive community-designed street murals can do the same thing. For example, check this out see article on Mural programs

Next month the International CPTED Association launches a new service: CPTED Workbooks for Designers and Community Developers. The inaugural issue will be on Tackling Graffiti. Watch for it International CPTED Association website

Also, check out Steven Woolerich's latest Target Crime blog called "Taking it to the Streets". see Steven's Target Crime blog