Photo: Mexico-City
Bringing an end to urban violence in Latin America
03 August 2013
by Richard Forster
Forty of the 50 most violent cities in the world are in Latin America and cities in Brazil, Colombia, Honduras and Mexico top the list. Nick Michell highlights how Mexico City and Medellin have launched successful programmes to counter urban crime.
With its highly urbanised population, Latin America is home to extreme and chronic forms of poverty and inequality, and a region where some 60 percent of all urban residents have been victims of crime. Women, young people, and those living with insecure land tenure are particularly vulnerable.
As well as the direct effect of violence on the victims, the indirect effects permeate the social fabric of households and societies, negatively influencing interpersonal trust and mutual expectations that are critical for sustaining rules-based transactions and building networks of exchange for positive social change. National and local governments have to act to ensure that future generations do not suffer these damaging consequences.
Mexico City is one local government that has taken a proactive approach to tackling crime. Through the use of new technology and the implementation of specialised security programmes engaging with its citizens, the Mexican capital has become one of the leading cities in Latin America, when it comes to reducing urban violence. In December 2012, Miguel Angel Mancera Espinosa, Mayor of Mexico City, launched the ‘For your Family, Voluntary Disarmament’ programme, which seeks to raise awareness among the population regarding the risks of owning guns and ammunition, and consists of an exchange of weapons for economic assistance, domestic appliances, or computer material.
“Since the programme began over 5,000 weapons have been taken off the streets of Mexico City in just five months,” says Mayor Mancera. “This figure stands in sharp contrast to the 5,000 weapons gathered over four years, from 2008 to 2011. With this programme, the government of Mexico City favours the prevention of crime by means of agreements, citizen education, and the construction of a culture of peace among its citizens. Citizens that actively engage in urban life make valued contributions and inform every decision we make, which was why my campaign slogan was ‘Deciding Together’.”
The programme also includes the exchange of toy weapons (bows and arrows, toy guns and rifles) for educational toys. All exchange is voluntary, the anonymity of those handing over the weapons is guaranteed, and the exchange is held in the atrium of a church, which is seen as neutral territory and therefore increases trust in the operation, thanks to an agreement with the church authorities.
Before launching the programme the authorities identified the areas where guns and armed people were most prevalent. After defining a position where the point of exchange was going to take place, each house in the area was visited by the brigades of the Mexico City Government’s Social Development Secretariat, to raise awareness about the risks of having guns. These brigades would inform and invite the citizens, especially mothers and heads of households, to hand over the weapons owned by any of their friends, relatives, and acquaintances.
Nearly 525,000 homes have been visited since the programme started using brigades made up of 23,958 people who organise meetings in public places like parks and as well as setting up workshops for children and young people between 6 and 18 years old. All these activities
are developed in coordination with neighbourhood committees and their leaders who have been trained to spread the message of the programme.
“This programme has been implemented for a number of years already, however in this administration we decided to involve citizens more directly than before, and we found that women and the elderly were particularly open to collaboration,” says Rosa Icela Rodríguez, Secretary of Social Development, Government of Mexico City. “Housewives have played a huge role, because they have dedicated themselves to convincing their friends, partners
and acquaintances about the dangers of owning guns at home. The elderly have raised awareness among their own sons, grandsons and neighbours, convincing them to give their arms and ammunition to the authorities.”
During the first ten months of 2012, a total of 1,039 firearm accidents or deaths occurred in Mexico City, which was the equivalent of 44 percent of all crimes committed. Furthermore, in late 2012 there was a 3.1 percent increase in the number of firearm injuries inflicted during the commission of a crime.
The ‘For your Family, Voluntary Disarmament’ programme represents a direct response to this increase in use of firearms but its success has been largely down to the participation of the citizens.
“Nothing would be possible without the cooperation of the citizens, who are actively informing, helping us monitor and giving us constant feedback, via social networks for example,” says Mayor Mancera. “But safety is only the first step. Coming down to the core value of trust, citizens who feel good about where they live are more likely to take care of it, have a better quality of life, and enjoy public space. That’s why we, to name one example, have created an app that allows residents to know the cellphone of their local policemen, to make complaints, to reach them at anytime, but most importantly, to be informed.”
New technology
In an attempt to further protect its citizens, Mexico City, together with telecommunications company Telmex and Thales, an international business engaged in providing security solutions, launched the Ciudad Segura (Safe City) surveillance project, which aims to be the most highly integrated and complete urban security system in the world. More than 500 engineers and experts from the Mexico City police department,Telmex and Thales will work together on the implementation of this project.
The system will handle calls and process information from surveillance systems, built on the city’s modern and widespread telecommunications network. The system processes information from 8,080 video cameras and sensors located across the city and transmits alarms to the appropriate operators when any unusual events or behaviour are detected. In a major emergency situation, police can deploy specially equipped mobile command centres that maintain contact with the central command centre (C4I). The system can also locate or identify vehicles in the city’s main streets thanks to its ability to read number plates.
The new integrated urban security system has enabled Mexican authorities to manage more than 600 incidents per day from the central command centre, five C2 control centres and two mobile C2 centres across the city, with an average response time of four and a half minutes. The operational efficiency of the police has increased by 19.1 percent and the number of vehicle thefts has gone down. Yet as Dominique Gaiardo, Vice President for Thales’s Protection Systems business, points out, even with advanced technology, the success of the project relies on the engagement with citizens.
“Citizens are very important to the success of Thales’s urban security system in Mexico City,” says Gaiardo. “Near to each of the 8,080 cameras, an alert button immediately connects citizens to the emergency services who can then see the caller and the area in which they are located, allowing the operator to make an assessment of the situation and respond accordingly. City dwellers must be fully educated about this service in order to make full use of the efficient technology.”
Importance of public spaces
Although it was known during the 1980s and most of the 1990s as one of the most violent city in the world due to drug trafficking and bombings, in more recent years the city of Medellin, Colombia has reinvented itself as a haven for business, tourism and its citizens, by smart urban planning and innovative regeneration programmes.
To improve urban security, Medellin set out first to establish a collective awareness of security issues among citizens. This task required overcoming residents’ fear of venturing into urban public spaces. Projects such as the mass transportation system Metro, inaugurated on 15 December, 1995, or the Park of Bare Feet of EPM, completed in the year 2000, helped to take the first steps in this direction.
The city is now focusing its municipal investments on implementing Integral Urban Projects or PUI’s aimed at improving the availability and safety of public spaces especially in deprived areas of the city.
“A public space alone has no impact but with PUI’s we improved the social tissue, getting people to leave their homes to enjoy the city and from there we continued with education with kindergartens for children under five years old where they develop their psychomotor and nutrition skills in an atmosphere which is appropriate for them to develop,” says Juan David Valderrama, CEO of the Agency of Cooperation and Investment of Medellin and the Metropolitan Area. “Through PUI’s we also integrate an infrastructure component for recreation and culture. In terms of health we have improved access to services and thus earned the public trust, which also improves safety. The combos (gangs) have begun to see that there is investment; that their families now have access to health services, their brothers are studying and their parents have space for relaxing and recreation and thus insecurity is mitigated. The three most neglected and lagging sectors of Medellin in terms of human quality index were the north-eastern, middle-eastern and middle-western communities and so the first three Integral Urban Projects started there.”
The results of the Integral Urban Projects have been primarily quantified in the PUI North-East, as this was the first to be implemented, where, in terms of urbanism, 125,000 square metres of public space have been created, representing 1.48 square metres of public space per inhabitant. A 343 metre inter-neighbourhood pedestrian corridor was added, connected by four bridges and eight passage areas, to connect those communities traditionally isolated due to their territorial conflicts, while the number of Neighbourhood Parks increased from three to 17 in nine neighbourhoods, with a 992 percent increase in the number of trees planted (154 to 1,527 units).
“We have managed to reach areas that were forgotten and the communities have now began to build trust and closeness with the public administration, reacting positively, denouncing illegality, and young people have found different opportunities,” says Aníbal Gaviria, Mayor of Medellin. “We believe it is essential to empower the citizen, explain to them their rights, show them their duties as a citizen and the commitment of the public administration on all issues, but we also need citizens to commit to report when they see illegal events. There are communication campaigns seeking that citizen co- responsibility allowing them to share what happens in the neighbourhoods, and also to make use of the Community Police to gain more confidence.”
Global Network on Safer Cities
With cities around the world increasingly focusing time and investment on urban security, UN-Habitat launched the Global Network on Safer Cities (GNSC) at the World Urban Forum in Naples in September 2012. The aim is to provide an appropriate cost effective virtual platform for cities to establish and/or reinforce communication and collaborative avenues for the exchange of experiences on urban safety and to facilitate the pooling of human and technical resources and skills to make this expert service more accessible to local authorities.
Developed as a result of the 16 years of normative and operational work of the Safer Cities Programme of UN-Habitat, at the city level the GNSC aims to systemise the different experiences and perspectives that exist around the world on urban crime and violence in order to analyse the challenges cities are facing.
“The GNSC is working with the 77 pilot municipalities that have already benefitted from UN-Habitat technical support in the development and implementation of city crime prevention and urban safety strategies,” says Juma Assiago, Human Settlements Officer & Lead Expert, GNSC Secretariat, Safer Cities Programme, UN-Habitat. “GNSC is also engaging with another 18 pilot cities that have ongoing joint programming pilots in place, and aims to scale up the number of cities involved in the network with 100 new city entrants applying the safer cities model by Habitat III in 2016.”
The GNSC emphasises how the role of local authorities is an important and decisive factor in addressing crime and particularly crime prevention as a common responsibility for all through proper urban governance.
Local authorities need to recognise that the integration of marginal groups in the governance of safety is key to the creation of safer living environments as there is no one risk factor which explains crime and crime variation but a multitude of risk factors. At the heart of this social approach to crime and violence is behavioural change, which places great emphasis on raising awareness with the citizen as the key actor.
“The absence of effective citizen engagement on a citywide scale leads to the emergence of bad practices in crime prevention such as gated communities and the privatisation of security to cater for the privileged few while many citizens, particularly in cities in the developing world, resort to vigilante groups and mob justice,” says Assiago. “Citizens’ role in safety and security therefore needs to be more structured and streamlined within a local government policy framework to allow for proper civic engagement mechanisms including with the police and elected leaders.”
While integrating new technology can help improve a city’s security issues, authorities must recognise the need to engage the citizen and produce a change in attitude to truly succeed. The creation of awareness campaigns on urban safety is important to ensure crime is addressed as a common responsibility for all, not just for the police or local authorities. The success of safer cities is dependent on the citizen as the key actor in providing tools to fellow residents and promoting a bottom-up approach that facilitates citizens’ active engagement and participation in the planning, management and governance of their localities.
