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CRIME AND FEAR IN PUBLIC PLACES

A CONFERENCE ON THE INDIVIDUAL’S RIGHTTO SAFE PUBLIC PLACES

17-18 October 2018

17-18 October 2018

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Contents

IntroductionOpening sessionA woman’s place: feminist work on women’s safety in public space-looking back to move forwards The right amount of panicSafety as a human rightIndividual’s agency: Sexual crimesWomen and violence from a global perspectiveWomen, violence and spaceViolence and the (in)tangible city: buildings, movement and people (1)Violence and the (in)tangible city: buildings, movement and people (2)Parallell sessionsFinal words

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CRIME AND FEAR IN PUBLIC PLACES

A CONFERENCE ON THE INDIVIDUAL’S RIGHTTO SAFE PUBLIC PLACES

17-18 October 2018

This interdisciplinary forum offered 2 days ofdiscussions about the individual’s right to safepublic places in national and internationalcontexts (18 sessions, 6 plenary and 12parallel sessions). The aim of the conferencewas first to promote a discussion on the needfor more comprehensive and contextualizedknowledge about violence in public places: itsnature, trends and patterns. And secondly, tooffer an opportunity for reflection about ourcurrent practices in promoting safety fordifferent groups of society, by both academicsand practitioners.

The event appealed to both academics andpractitioners from a variety of disciplines andbackgrounds. The conference offeredexamples of state-of-the-art research andcrime prevention practices from Europe, theUK, the USA, Africa, South America andAustralia.

Together we addressed complex and difficultissues. We heard the testimony not just ofleading scholars but also of people whoselives have been torn apart by violence inpublic places. We were reminded thatsuccess or failure in shaping urban placesmatters to real people going about theireveryday lives. People like you. And me.

It was a joy to spend time and learn from all ofyou!

Vania Ceccato, samordnare för nätverketSäkraplatser

Introduction

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Keynote speakers1.Liz Kelly, London Metropolitan University, UK2.Juma Assiago, The Safer Cities Programme atUN-Habitat3.Supreet Karanjit Singh, SafeCity Initiative,India4.Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, University ofCalifornia Los Angeles, USA5.Katja Grillner, KTH Royal Institute ofTechnology, Sweden6.Jenny Westerstrand, The NationalOrganisation for Women’s Shelters, Sweden7.Fiona Vera-Gray, Durham University, UK8.Mahesh K. Nalla, Michigan State University,USA9..Elisabeth Löfgren, The National CommitteeFor UN Women, Sweden10.Mahesh Nalla, Michigan State University,USA

This booklet provides a flavor of the main topicsdiscussed in the conference, it does not coverall subject areas and/or presentations. For adetailed list of the conference contents, pleasecheck the conference detailed program.

Säkraplatser NätverketFölj oss på Twitter@Sakraplatser_n

Conference videos: https://youtu.be/rRqS5LeXzA0

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From upper-left corner:Maria Håkansson, KTH’s and school’s representative in the openingceremony with Karin Svanberg from the Swedish National Council forCrime Prevention (BRÅ) and Alice Marshall and Charlotte Folkessonfrom KTH’s Gender equality office.

Conference videos: https://youtu.be/rRqS5LeXzA0

Opening session

A woman’s place: feminist work on women’s safety in public space-looking back to move forwards

Liz Kelly presented a historical context aboutwomen in public spaces which is focused onthe general patterns and structuresunderlying women's insecurity. Sheuncovered the experiences and perceptionsof women over time, but also the struggleswomen have faced to reclaim their rights insociety. She concluded with that public spaceis “gendered” and has been shaped with themale norm in mind. Liz Kelly combined a widemix of literature studies, previous surveys andmedia debates in support of her speech andplaced emphasis on historical events.

She emphasized the idea of gender-segregated public spaces in a recent past:

“Even though women were in public spacesthere were expectations of their behavioursand there were particular spaces that theywere expected to occupy. Women wereexpected to behave in a way that wasmodest, to not to be fully present in publicspaces.”

According to her, women’s behaviour inpublic space is deeply rooted in historiccultural and normative expectations of womenand their place in society. A solutionaccording to her is to incorporate genderrelations into planning and politics on alllevels.

Liz Kelly is Professor of

Sexualized Violence at London

Metropolitan University, where she is also Director of the

Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit

(CWASU). She is also the author of

Surviving Sexual Violence (1988).

Conference videos: https://youtu.be/rRqS5LeXzA0 5

The right amount of panic: how women manage being in public space

Fiona Vera-Gray presentedthe general findings of herbook “The Right Amount ofPanic: How women tradefreedom for safety” andtalked about women’sbehavior in public space.She stated that thebehaviour of women hasbeen shaped due to fear ofharassment and harassmentitself has been absorbedinto policies.

Vera-Gray discussed howtrivialisation andnormalisation processes arepart of the reason for thesilence around sexualharassment and the limits oflanguage.

Vera-Gray suggested afundamental shift in societyto enable women to“unlearn” fear through thechanging of gender norms,increasing women’s accessto space, and making safetywork invisible and visible.

Fiona Vera-Grayis a Research Fellow

based at Durham Law School. She

researches violence against women and is

an expert in public sexual harassment.

Her book “The Right Amount of Panic:

How women trade freedom for safety”

draws on original research from the UK

to explore the habitual strategies

women and girls employ to maintain a

sense of safety in public spaces.

About women’s pre-conceptions in society,she emphasised that:

“This is change from theidea of self-defence hasjust been a response todiscrete event, to way ofhelping women defendthe self from the waythat they are thought tobe in society. Womenare thought to bedoubtful withthemselves, about theirabilities. It is learning tounlearn ….. how to befully present in yourselfin public spaces.”

The main conclusion ofher presentation wasthat “women need tohave the right amount ofpanic” to ensure thatthey do not accept thenormalisation of sexualharassment as part oftheir day-to-day lives.

Conference videos: https://youtu.be/rRqS5LeXzA0 6

Safety as a human right: UN-Habitat, Safer Cities Programme

Juma Assiago presented theUnited Nations, Safer CitiesProgramme, an initiative byUN Habitat which isinfluenced by the SustainableDevelopment Goals, but alsotheories of globalization suchas those by Saskia Sassenand her concept of the‘global city’.

Assiago talked about citiesas a source of developmentand mentioned the benefitsof urbanization's positiveopportunities for residents.

From Assiago’s perspective,successful cities are thosethat promote sustainablecompact living and allow landmixed uses and functions.

According to him, the mainobjective is to improve thequality of life of residents andto enable them to becomemain actors, so that efforts inan area are based on theirconditions and local work.

Juma Assiago isan Urbanist and

Social Scientist and the Global

Coordinator of the Safer Cities

Programme at UN-Habitat. He has

accumulated 18-year international working experience providing technical support to

both national and local governments on the development and

implementation of city crime prevention

and urban safety strategies.

Assiago believes that intrinsiccreative forces in cities can beutilized to contribute to socialintegration and transformproblems, such as crimethrough improved socialcohesion in the community.Assiago also highlights the roleof urban design andmaintenance of public placesas key in this process.

The security work in citiesmust follow both short-termand long-term security andsocial sustainability goals,constantly in relation to arelative level of crime in a cityor area.

Finally, Assiago believes thatimproved urban governance,together with successful crimeprevention cases aredesirable, as well asmultisectoral preventionmeasures should be madeavailable at the most locallevel of governance.

Conference videos: https://youtu.be/rRqS5LeXzA0 7

In the morning we discussedtrends and patterns of crime inpublic places. Keeping a closeeye on these things isfundamental for research andpolicy. But it can be easy for us toforget that statistics are about realhuman beings, with families andfriends and jobs and lives they'vecarefully put together over theyears.

People like you and me. Peoplelike Ida Johannsson. On anAugust day in 2015, Ida went outfor a run in her local park, here inStockholm. She never cameback. In that public place, Ida wasmurdered. She was 21 years old.

Her death was reported in thenewspapers and the media, butattention was less on her andmore on the teenager whomurdered her.

And while thousands of peopletook to tracks across the countryto pay tribute to her – and to showdefiance in the face of fear - therewas little discussion about howplaces like that park could bemade safer, for women like Ida,for all of us.

Ida's mother, Karin, who has beeninvolved in making a film about herdaughter told us about herexperience in losing her daughterand the life after Ida’s murder. Shewanted to pay a tribute to herdaughter by making reference tothe agency shown by many peopleand organisations here in Swedenthat are ready to supportindividual’s in need after suchtragedies.

A teaser of the film “Life after Ida”was screened by JohannaAust/FLICKFILM. She told us a bitmore about her experience inworking with this film.

Later, we had Jenny Westerstrandwho is the president of the nationalorganization of women’s sheltersand young women’s shelter - Roks.She gave us a comprehensivepicture of her work at Roks but alsoa review of her studies in the field ofwomen’s violence in Sweden.

Jenny’s talk provided a vibrant andconcrete picture of the types ofsupport from society (“theinfrastructure) that are out thereavailable today in Sweden,expressed by the work done byWomen’s shelter and YoungWomen’s shelter.

Individual’s agency: Sexual crimes and example of supporting infrastructure

8Conference videos: https://youtu.be/rRqS5LeXzA0

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The project Safecity was introduced by Supreet Singh, therepresentative of SafeCity Initiative. She demonstrated thepotential of technology to instil meaningful changes in thesociety. Supreet Singh emphasized that the growing informationfrom Safecity can create open discussion, reveal trends,increase awareness, support engagement, and createinstitutional accountability. According to her, education for menand boys is critical to shift the social system as all perpetratorsare fathers, sons, or brothers, and they must recognize thateach victim is equal, and a mom, sister, or daughter.

Here is the link to a film Supreet K Singh made on real incidentsin India.https://youtu.be/rRqS5LeXzA0

Conference videos: https://youtu.be/rRqS5LeXzA0

The topic of presentation by Elisabeth Löfgren, the vice-Chairman of The Swedish national Committee for UN-Women, was Women’s safety when migrating and refugeecamps. Her presentation addressed the issue of gender-based violence against women refugees and thediscrimination and human rights abuses that occur inrefugee camps. She ended her talk by highlighting theimportance of empowerment of women to make cities morewomen friendly as well as planning for women in publicspaces.

“Empowerment is not telling women what they need. It isasking them what they want and need – they should beable to make their own choices.”

Women and violence from a global perspective

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In the context of Women and violence, Jenny Westerstrand,president of the National Organization for Women’s Sheltersand Young Women's Shelters, talked about women’s shelters,the process for the women coming into the shelter and whatkind of challenges they face.

According to her, what they ultimately do is to “carry the voice”,to be a platform for women that are not heard and lobby forlegislation and policies.

The main purpose of her presentation was to give an ideaabout how women themselves can be the tools to change theirlives, allowing them to "take back the city" and empoweringthem to claim their space in public places.

Women, violence and space

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The topic of presentation was Transit crime, the builtenvironment and gender differences, and AnastasiaLoukaitou-Sideris, at UCLA. The main objective of her talk wasto present the link between the design of the built environmentand transit crime and also the gender perspectives on mobilityand how those findings should influence planning. Shehighlighted that women’s concerns and needs are not takenseriously by agencies and even when they initiate someprograms for women’s need, it is not really what women reallyneed:“Only one third of US transit operators believe that they shoulddo something specific about women’s need. they are afraid thatthey’re going to be accused of reverse discrimination if theyfocus on women”.

Conference videos: https://youtu.be/rRqS5LeXzA0

The result of “The Stockholm rape study” was presented byVania Ceccato, Professor at the Department of Urban Planning& Environment at KTH. In her study, she took a strong GIS-centric research approach to crime in the city; shifting the focusfrom the underlying social issues surrounding sexual assault tothe physical factors and the location, conditions, and patternswhere sexual offenses occur.The purpose of Vania Ceccato’s work was to understand thecharacteristics of the “places of rape”, identify similar factors,and potentially discover connections between the victim andcrime place. What can one learn from the nature of these placesto betterassess the role of environment in these crime events? Knowingabout the nature of these places provides informative andpractical support for intervention which may have the power toprevent outdoor rapes to occur.

Violence and the (in)tangible city: buildings, movement and people (1)

13Conference videos: https://youtu.be/rRqS5LeXzA0

Katja Grillner is Professor of Critical Studies in Architectureat KTH, Sweden. She currently serves as Dean of Faculty atKTH (2015-). Grillner is the director of Architecture in Effect, anational initiative for a strong research environment and co-founded the feminist architecture teaching and researchgroup FATALE. Her presentation was aimed to provideinsights of how the feminist perspective could beimplemented in the built environment to increase women’sposition in society and to increase the perception of safety.

Violence and the (in)tangible city: buildings, movement and people (2)

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Architecture + Feminisms: sample key publications

Slides by Hélène Frichot and Katja Grillner]

KTH

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Rejuvenation of Göteborg first public park, Brunnsparken, was describedby Niels de Bruin from White arkitekter. He discussed the process andmethods of analyzing and redesigning of this public park in the city tomake it livelier, safer and more attractive to the users.Brunnsparken in Gothenburg has long been the subject of criticism. Thearea is considered to be too poorly equipped for public transport and thecity's inhabitants feel insecure there.White arkitekter used dialogue with people during walk through the parkand design thinking to conduct analysis and identify the physical elementswhich cause a concern of crime and consequently eliminate them.

Conference videos: https://youtu.be/rRqS5LeXzA0

The result of the study on college students’ transit safety in Paris,France was presented by Hugo d’Arbois de Jubainville. Hedescribed how perceived safety in rail transit (in the transportitself and in stations) varies depending on individualcharacteristics, transport habits, and victimization.In addition, his results indicated that perceived safety isassociated with gender and victimization, but not with transporthabits. Results also showed that students who feel less safe aremore likely to take precautions when traveling. In addition,implications for improving students’ safety in public transit wereeventually discussed.

Parallell sessions

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Carolyn Whitzman, Professor in Urban Planning, presentedher study of Public transport safety of Melbourne tertiaryStudents.

The main focus with her research is on the prevention of crimeagainst women, where she is interested in how to createinclusive cities for all. Background factors, such as gender,were taken into account for the performance analysis. Theresult of Melbourne study indicated that it is difficult to get toand from campus in the city.

Solutions to the perceived security issues include, accordingto Carolyn, in addition to practical measures like more securityguards and better lighting, public education campaigns in thefield of security. In addition, she believed that universitiesshould take their responsibility to maintain the safety of publictransport and thus work with the transport companies towardsa common goal.

Melbourne: who is responsible for safety in a ‘knowledge city’?

Conference videos: https://youtu.be/rRqS5LeXzA0

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Melbourne: Types of victimization

Source: Carolyn Whitzman, Professor in Urban Planning, Melbourne, Australia.

Conference videos: https://youtu.be/rRqS5LeXzA0

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Sexual harrassment in public places in India

Conference videos: https://youtu.be/rRqS5LeXzA0

Mahesh Nalla, professor in the School of Criminal Justice, talked about themajor challenges of preventing sexual harassment and crime in publictransport, and this both from a local, Indian, but also from a broader, generalperspective. The general focus in the presentation was on the researchproject: sexual harassment in public spaces.

The primary objective was to understand the determinants of sexualharassment by self-reported male offenders, while the secondary objectivewas to examine gender differences in select issues relating to the sexualharassment, the causes and state responses. Nalla recommend policiesand measures such as crowd management, science applications such asapps for early warning/reporting, a change of curriculum in preschools andgrade schools and the media’s role with sponsorship of Bollywood andCricket to show how harassing women is wrong.

A year on since #MeToo movementwent viral, over half of young peoplesay now they are more likely to speakup against sexual harassment andsexual violence. We definitely see thistrend among our KTH students whenthey answered our questionnaire. Butthis change did not happen ‘out of theblue’. About ten years ago we couldalready notice signs of similar #Metoomovement in other parts of the worldshowing examples of harassment andsexual violence.

Sexual violence is an entire range ofabuse that have particular situationalcontexts. An empty train in theevening might allow the anonymitynecessary for a rape. Morecommonly, it is the crowded buses ortrains during rush hours that justmight provide the right opportunity forgroping and all sorts of inappropriatesexual behaviors.

Either small or huge, these eventsaffect half of the population aroundthe world. It reduces individual’sability to participate in school, workand public life. Although violence inthe private domain is now widelyrecognized as a human rightsviolation, violence of this kind inpublic places still remains a largelyneglected issue (UN Women, 2017).

An individual’s right to safe public places is also highly dependent on society’s norms and structures that either promote or limit one’s freedom to move around without hindrance or fear. We have witnessed in this conference examples from research and practice that show that fear and victimisation are not only about age or gender but rather a result of the intersection of a set of individual’s characteristics. Being a disabled and poor individual creates ‘synergic layers of disadvantage’ that affect how one perceives and experiences the world and expresses fear. In this conference we examined victimisation and fear through an intersectional lens, considering issues of gender, age, physical and psychological abilities, socio-economic status, religion, and ethnic belonging.

Given that sexual victimisation is never justified, in this conference we discussed examples that characterise women’s behaviour in situational contexts in which women become targets. This is of relevance since the identification of these conditions is crucial to create opportunities for crime prevention. Our goal with this conference was to use the current debate to turn to questions about what is needed to promote change in society. We hope that with this conference a step forward has been taken to achieve this goal.

Final words

19Conference videos: https://youtu.be/rRqS5LeXzA0

Vania Ceccato, Conference committee representative andsamordnare för nätverket Säkraplatser, KTH.

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ContributorsFatemeh Dastgheib, KTHStudents from KTH cource: AURA 2018,Applied Urban and Regional AnalysisVania Ceccato, KTH

KTH – Safeplaces networkVania Ceccato, Roya Bamzar, Gustavo Moreira, Seyedehfatemeh Dastgheib, Runa Björnsdottir, Susan Hellström, Bridget da Costa.

KTH – Conference and communicationCaisa Ramqvist, Charlotte Sjöberg, Håkan Soold, Mats Paulsen, Josefin Backman, Veronika Nagapetan, Sanda Tcacencu

KTH – Venue and recordingGeorge Askew, John Berglund, Joakim Nordengel, Hantverkarna

Thanks to our sponsors and collaboratorsKTH-Division of Urban and regional studiesKTH-The centre for the future of placesKTH-Centre for the Future of Places –CFPThe Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention - BRÅUS-AB Digitaltryckeri

In particularMats Wilhelmsson, Maria Håkansson, Catharina Gabrielsson, Tigran Haas, Michael Landzelius, Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, Mahesh Nalla, Elsa Marie da Silva, Erik Wennerström, Anastasia Koktsidou, Krister Olsson, Karin Johansson, Folke Snickars.

Conference videos: https://youtu.be/rRqS5LeXzA0

November 2018

Copyright © 2018 SÄKRAPLATSER Nätverket, All rights reserved.

SafePlaces NetworkSafeplaces is an interdisciplinary network that links local needs forknowledge in situational crime prevention to a national andinternational network of experts and institutions. The network has itsbasis at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Swedenand, with support from the National Council of Crime Prevention(BRÅ), creates a number of initiatives devoted to improvement oflocal knowledge and information sharing about the conditions in whichcrime occur and the best ways to prevent it.

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