Crime and urban space

Crime and urban space

1. Le Corbusier, Congres Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne (CIAM) and the Athens charter

   • 1920's
   • Ocean liners
     • Life was organised in a big boat
   • Desing for living: how we can live in good housing
     • Low cost
   • Building functional areas
     • High buildings, maximise sunshine
     • Areas with green belts
     • Different function based zones
       • Different car lanes, and walking lanes
     • Barbican estate, London

2. 1. Crime and opportunity

   • Criminological theories about motivations for crime have got it wrong (Ronald Clarke 1980)
     • Imprecise, Vague connection between cause and effect, Dispositions change, Impractical
       • Why not this one, why not that one?
       • Impractical: love your kids more?
         • How do you adress inequality?
       • Vague: everything should be caused by something else, is that true? What is the root cause of crime--> not just that you're unhappy with something
         • Distant socialogical processes
       • Dispositions change: people most of the time don't commit crime. Are we arguing that dispositions change?
     • Crime is an outcome of rational choice
       • Offending is designed to benefit the offender
       • All of us are potential deviants
         • We make a cost/ benefit calculation
           • We commit crime when there is an opportunity to do so
       • Benefits
         • It has immediate practical use
           • We can understand why people make choices
             • And influence them to make difference choices.

3. Routine activity theory (Cohen and Felson 1979)

   • ‘Chemistry for crime’:
     • 1. Likely offenders
     • 2. Suitable targets
       • Visible
       • Access
       • Value
         • Put 50 pound note on fridge, it will get stolen. When it's free, no one does
       • Inertia
     • 3. Absence of capable guardians
     • Must converge in time and space (have to come together)
   • How is crime situated in everyday life?

4. 2. Architecture and design

   • Urban planning: Jane Jacobs: the Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961)
     • Empty streets aren't good perse, interaction is important
   • Defensible space (Oscar Newman 1973)
     • Encourage the development of collective social control
     • Encourage sense of safety
     • Four key principles:
       • Territoriality
         • ownership so they can protect it, discourage people to come in, how you group houses together, play grounds or common gardens
       • Surveillance
         • you should see people who are suspicious
       • Image
         • no stigma, identity
       • Environment
         • as a whole, how it was made up,
     • Criticisms
       • Not enough attention to stigma and labelling of estates?
         • People get a label, you should think about the effect of that
       • Ignores policing tactics?
         • Police officers target certain spacial areas
       • Ignores housing policies?
         • Most vulnerable people together
       • Is the threat from ‘outsiders’?
         • Mostly the criminals are from the estate itself

5. 3. Crime and disorder

   • Broken windows (Wilson and Kelling 1982)
     • People are mostly concerned about public order (Graffiti, etc)
     • Crime and disorder are linked
     • Importance of visible crimes
     • Particularly important if they are ‘signal crimes’ (Innes 2004).
     • If they go unchallenged… … lead to breakdown of community controls…and breeds further disorder
   • Signal crimes (Innes 2004)
     • Policy implications
       • Zero tolerance: guard, no jaywalking, etc