Description

This episode will focus on 30 years of crime prevention and urban security starring Adam Crawford, Co-Director of the Vulnerability and Policing Futures Research Centre at the University of York and the University of Leeds (UK), and André Vervooren, former Director of the Safety Department of the City of Rotterdam (Netherlands). The episode is moderated by Efus’ Executive Director, Elizabeth Johnston.

This episode was produced in the framework of the IcARUS project funded by the European Comission. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 882749.

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Transcription

• Elizabeth Johnston

  Welcome to the Efus podcast, a podcast produced by the European Forum for Urban Security in collaboration with the ICARUS Project, Innovative Approaches to Urban Security. I'm Elizabeth Johnston, the Executive Director of Efus, the European network of 250 local and regional authorities dedicated to urban security policies. We're very excited to launch this podcast to give visibility to innovative approaches and local initiatives. and to encourage in-depth conversations about urban security. Today we are joined by Adam Crawford, co-director of the ESRC Vulnerability and Policing Futures Research Center, working both at the University of York and the University of Leeds in the UK, and by Andre Vervoeren, who is director of the Safety Department for the City of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, city which is vice president of EFUS. Hello, Andre. Hello, Adam. Let's begin with you, Adam. In your research, you've explored the evolution of urban security challenges over the past 30 years. Based on the review of accumulated knowledge within the ICARUS project, what are the main changes in urban security challenges that have occurred during this time period?

• Adam Crawford

  One of the things that is very apparent from the last 30 years is we've seen an unprecedented reduction in the volume of crime. particularly in terms of traditional crimes during that period. So in some senses, urban security is actually a success story. Many of the strategies that we've implemented have led to a drop in the volume of crime, albeit to some degree, some of that has migrated to the online world.

• Elizabeth Johnston

  Andre, you headed the security department of the city of Rotterdam from 2011 to 2021. How has urban security evolved in Rotterdam over the past 30 years?

• André Vervooren

  When you talk about the evaluation of safety and security, it's important to realize that some 30 years ago, Rotterdam was facing several safety problems in the city. Junkies, prostitutes and beggars dictated the streetscape in the city center. people waiting for buses or trams were approached or harassed and in the spring of two thousand one the residents of one of the most servilo affected neighborhoods spangen had had enough and they come clad in their pajamas they occupied the city hall And they were no longer willing to step over the addicts in their doorways in the morning and were fed up with all the rubbish and nuisance in their own streets.

• Elizabeth Johnston

  A sort of public protest?

• André Vervooren

  Yeah, it was a kind of revolution. And many people felt in that period really unsafe due to drugs-related nuisance and crime. And this sound of alarm was heard by the city council. And that, in our opinion, was the really start of all kind of five years action programs. And that means that safety from that period of was one of the highest priority in city and city council. And there was starting from that programs, action programs, not only paper, but with people going to action in really difficult neighborhoods. It was introduced as a so-called action program, systematic, integral and innovative approach. It was under the direction of the municipal administration. And it got the title Stretching Safety Rotterdam. And safety become, just as I told you, priority for all the municipal services and many partners. And when you think about security and safety, mostly you think of police and public prosecutor. In these programs, it was with also housing corporations, welfare, social services, schools, residents and entrepreneurs. And I started to talk about 30 years ago, but nowadays... We have still a new five-year action program and it is mandated by the city council. And of course, our mayor, Mayor Aboutaleb, has an important role in these programs.

• Elizabeth Johnston

  Is urban security always evolving according to the societal context?

• André Vervooren

  Yes, because I started talking about it 30 years ago. But now at the moment, we still have problems now with a lot of drug problems and a lot of vulnerable people who get in contact with big criminal organizations. and are involved in that. There's a lot of criminality explosions in the city. So the problem's evaluated. And in those programs, I told it's integral, but it's also the combination between repression and prevention.

• Elizabeth Johnston

  Adam, when considering the evolution of threats, can you discuss the changing nature and scope of threats, as well as the factors that have influenced these changes?

• Adam Crawford

  Yeah, I think an obvious factor that has changed over that time has been the introduction of new technologies and the opportunities for prevention that they bring, but also the threats that they've brought. And the most obvious one is the online environment. Cybercrime has massively increased. The amount of cyber threats to individuals, to financial institutions, to political institutions has become quite significant. So there's been a significant growth through the digital world that we now occupy. And of course, the other area in which there's been significant changes in threats is what we might call the transnational influence. So that threats both have international origins, but may express themselves in different ways in localities so that their actual causes of the threats may lie far, far away from a particular city. But also, there's greater movement of people, goods and services into cities and out of cities that constitute new threats.

• Elizabeth Johnston

  Let's come back to Rotterdam. André, what has been the main solutions and innovations implemented to improve security in your city?

• André Vervooren

  I can talk about it for hours, but let's try to make it very clear. We realize in those 30 years, working on safety is a joint effort. We tackle safety together with, I told, the many organizations in the city. And so besides police and also residents, private security firms, business people work with us on safety and security issues. And so they help us and help each other to find solutions to problems. And what I told, the action program is still every time adopted. So that means there is also mandate and power behind it. There's money for it. And secondly, a customer approach has been developed. For each of the 71 Rotterdam districts, the municipal departments, police, public prosecutor, residents work closely with each other there. And also what I told the private partners, the corporation, the entrepreneurs. And where we start with is a neighborhood profile. So you can check if your actions and measures really help. In addition to tackle the problems in the neighborhoods, we developed such an instrument for measuring the perceived safety. of people who lived in Rotterdam. And we called it the neighborhood profile.

• Elizabeth Johnston

  If you had to choose just one innovation or solution implemented in Rotterdam, which would it be?

• André Vervooren

  Of course, during the years, we start to work with cameras in the really bad streets, all kinds of programs for youngsters. So there are a lot of activities, a lot of measures, a lot of new ways to pick up. And for myself, I make it really simple with problems in the city. I just told people from Spangen in the PM has come to the city hall. It's important when such alarm calls came from the city, responsible men and people, you have to go there. And if you go there, you can see what's happening and you have to stay there. It's important that you are very visible so people can reach you very easy to come in the shop you opened. And when you listen and you get in cooperation with those people, It's very important to get to action and to make really simple appointments with each other. What can we do? What can you do? And what can we do together?

• Elizabeth Johnston

  Adam, do you share this point of view from your academic perspective?

• Adam Crawford

  I think the measures that we've introduced have been diverse. One of the things that we have learned is about not just adopting measures or appropriating measures that may have worked in one city into another, but thinking about how we translate them into the particular context of particular cities. But I think one example... would be around the use of environmental design. and situational crime prevention. In the early years, that was sometimes introduced in rather crude ways in which it actually sometimes reinforced people's insecurities because there's a tension between, on the one hand, perceptions of security, which matter because they shape the way people use places, but also the more objective levels of crime, which, as I say, have actually been reducing over the period.

• Elizabeth Johnston

  How can these fine days inform future policy decision and implementation at the local level?

• Adam Crawford

  What we've learned is that a lot of things work in a lot of places, but not everything works everywhere. So what that means is that we might need to have much clearer understanding of, first of all, what is the tool, the mechanism, the strategy that's being implemented? And? what are the theories of change that inform those strategies? And then secondly, we need a real understanding of the processes of implementation because they differ in different cities. So how are they being implemented? Who's implementing them? And in what ways are they modifying or diluting the ways in which a particular measure is being implemented? And then thirdly, we really need a real understanding about the context in which interventions are being applied because context matters. and contexts are different in terms of different neighbourhoods, but also in different cities and different cultures. And so the outcomes of similar strategies can be very different in different contexts. Finally, we really need much better evaluation of the outcomes of urban security strategies, because one thing that came out very starkly from the review is that most interventions are not evaluated.

• Elizabeth Johnston

  Is that kind of evaluation possible?

• Adam Crawford

  Evaluation can itself be costly and timely, but evaluation can happen in different ways. We tend to think of very extreme examples of random control trials, which are very expensive and take a lot of time. There are more routine ways we can collect data about outcomes, data about what the implications of particular strategies are. Evaluation is important for organizational learning. So if organizations want to learn how to do things better, then evaluating the strategies that they're implementing is really quite fundamental. It's also important for others and for knowledge, but it's pretty fundamental in terms of organizational learning.

• Elizabeth Johnston

  Let's go back to Rotterdam again. André, what is the main lesson of the last 13 years that you would like to share with other cities working to improve urban security?

• André Vervooren

  I think on five things. First of all, building towards secure neighborhoods. Secondly, preventing youth crime. Third, combating suppressive crime. Fourth, dealing with polarization and countering extremism. and five, combating high-impact crime and cybercrime. And it's very important to organize the balance between prevention and repression. And of course, a greater attention to young people, to vulnerable target groups. And that's how you try to build a safe and resilient city.

• Elizabeth Johnston

  And what are the key takeaways from the accumulated knowledge based on the IcARUS project?

• André Vervooren

  The value of multi-agency partnerships. A knowledge that repressive measures have their boundaries. Knowledge about failure and undesired side effects isn't important as learning about success and do not focus on searching for the silver bullet.

• Elizabeth Johnston

  Adam, which lessons learned these last 30 years should be implemented today?

• Adam Crawford

  So I think the lessons of the 30 years make it very clear that what we need is much better structuring of partnerships and relations between the different. providers, the different stakeholders, and that should include the research community, alongside police, local authorities, and it partly depends what the intervention is. But we have become pretty clear that multi-stakeholder partnerships are fundamental, and they need to be built on trusting relations between the different partners. But there's a very important role, I suggest, for the research community to play, both in terms of the knowledge base that there is, that that should inform new strategies, but also in terms of evaluation and learning that can come out of the implementation of new initiatives.

• Elizabeth Johnston

  So is multi-stakeholder partnership the solution?

• Adam Crawford

  Yeah, I think one of the things that the ICARUS project is trying to do is exactly this, to actually bring together practitioners, researchers from different professions to co-design and think through the implications of particular strategies. And replicating that in a more significant way, I think, is important. But on the question of new and emerging challenges, I think there are some real... Important challenges on the horizon. Obviously, the digital revolution continues. We've got artificial intelligence. We need to think through the implications of artificial intelligence for crime and security. There's obviously significant challenges around climate change and what that's going to have, the implication that's going to have for cities across Europe as migration increases, but also as temperature and some of the damages that are caused by the environment. play out across our different countries.

• Elizabeth Johnston

  Maybe a last question to both of you. How can academia and local government work together best to effectively tackle these challenges and to create sustainable and resilient cities? Andre, first?

• André Vervooren

  In Rotterdam, it's crucial to develop urban security initiatives together with the citizens of Rotterdam. evidence-based together with universities, research institutes, and not only repressive, but stay ahead and organize their preventive measures also. Preventive measures and boundaries on organization is a parallel society where organized crime rules.

• Elizabeth Johnston

  And from your academic point of view, Adam?

• Adam Crawford

  I think the IcARUS project provides a good model for that. It provides a good model to thinking about and how you structure relations between key partners, key stakeholders at particular cities, but also in terms of the communities that are involved. Because one of the things we also know is that the role of citizens in communities, but also through associations and other groupings, is very often fundamentally important. In terms of safety, this is not something that can be imposed by local government and police. It has to be something that's co-produced. by the citizens, the local organizations, etc. And the research community has a role to play in that. And I think we need the terms of a new conversation to happen between government, policymakers, practitioners, and researchers into thinking about the knowledge base, how that can inform policies and practices, but also how the research community makes sure that its findings engage and are understood. by those wider communities.

• Elizabeth Johnston

  To wrap up our discussion, what would be your final words of advice, Andre?

• André Vervooren

  Make it very simple. Go there. Stay there. Listen and act. And then after act, you evaluated and you are there, you stay there, you listened and you act again. And always together with the residents who live there and always in an early period also getting the private side of the private partners. So do nothing alone.

• Elizabeth Johnston

  Thank you, André Vervooren.

• André Vervooren

  Thank you very much for all the questions. And I look forward for the coming 30 years of Efus acting for cities in Europe.

• Elizabeth Johnston

  Thank you, Professor Adam Crawford.

• Adam Crawford

  Thank you, Elizabeth. It's been a pleasure.

• Elizabeth Johnston

  Many thanks to our guests and thank you to our audience for listening. We hope you enjoyed this episode which was produced in the framework of the IcARUS project funded by the European Commission. We look forward to sharing more insights and discussions with you in the future. So don't forget to subscribe to this podcast and visit our website, the European Forum for Urban Security. Stay tuned for the next episode, the Efus Podcast.