Tremendous stuff. One thing I would add is that higher crime, by its very nature, provokes worse policing. This happens through some obvious mechanisms (more brutalized, overworked, and trigger-happy cops), but also through some more subtle mechanisms. As crime reduces urban densities, police numbers relative to the area they cover start to fall, and cops become confined to their cars, since this is the only way they can cover their expanding territories. This kills off foot patrolling, one of the best and most proven anti-crime interventions, with a pedigree hearkening back to the Victorians. Some London police stations still have 19th-century maps on their wall of their territory divided up into individual officers’ beats, which were often no more than a few streets of super-densely populated space. Solve the crime problem, and you may well find that America’s policing problem fixes itself to a surprising degree.
Can we really say that crime reduces urban densities? Wouldn’t the socio-economics come first, followed by crime as a multiplier on the impact on destruction of a community and its health.
Separately to the above, I think you make a really good point about foot patrolling. There is a link here to criminology and environmental psychology of why and where crime occurs to consider.
I’ll try not to butcher the history too much as I am an engineer/designer but I understand that the prevailing view was that crime in inner cities was seen as a natural behaviour of the poorer masses as a result of their innate psychology. Researchers gradually discovered that its really environment shapes much of make drives a crime to occur (noting the variety of crime that can occur).
So to your point on patrolling large areas, then getting large-scale Urban Planning is absolutely key here. Sprawl plagues North America and many developing countries and results in what you said. Good Urban Planning would facilitate better policing as well as a range of other factors that improve well-being, health, and productivity.
Side story—I recently visited Limerick, Ireland for a project. The city has previously been plagued by drug crime and gang-land family violence. The police there stated that it was a combination of hard-line policing on violence AND community policing (building relationship with the wider community) which changed the situation. So I’m sure there are times when hard-line and tough policing is needed.
So all-in-all, does the solution start with urban planning?
Tremendous stuff. One thing I would add is that higher crime, by its very nature, provokes worse policing. This happens through some obvious mechanisms (more brutalized, overworked, and trigger-happy cops), but also through some more subtle mechanisms. As crime reduces urban densities, police numbers relative to the area they cover start to fall, and cops become confined to their cars, since this is the only way they can cover their expanding territories. This kills off foot patrolling, one of the best and most proven anti-crime interventions, with a pedigree hearkening back to the Victorians. Some London police stations still have 19th-century maps on their wall of their territory divided up into individual officers’ beats, which were often no more than a few streets of super-densely populated space. Solve the crime problem, and you may well find that America’s policing problem fixes itself to a surprising degree.
Can we really say that crime reduces urban densities? Wouldn’t the socio-economics come first, followed by crime as a multiplier on the impact on destruction of a community and its health.
Separately to the above, I think you make a really good point about foot patrolling. There is a link here to criminology and environmental psychology of why and where crime occurs to consider.
I’ll try not to butcher the history too much as I am an engineer/designer but I understand that the prevailing view was that crime in inner cities was seen as a natural behaviour of the poorer masses as a result of their innate psychology. Researchers gradually discovered that its really environment shapes much of make drives a crime to occur (noting the variety of crime that can occur).
So to your point on patrolling large areas, then getting large-scale Urban Planning is absolutely key here. Sprawl plagues North America and many developing countries and results in what you said. Good Urban Planning would facilitate better policing as well as a range of other factors that improve well-being, health, and productivity.
Side story—I recently visited Limerick, Ireland for a project. The city has previously been plagued by drug crime and gang-land family violence. The police there stated that it was a combination of hard-line policing on violence AND community policing (building relationship with the wider community) which changed the situation. So I’m sure there are times when hard-line and tough policing is needed.
So all-in-all, does the solution start with urban planning?