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Plan It Safe: A community safety forum
Growing recognition of council's role in safer public places _________________________________________________________ Many recent initiatives in community safety support a leading role for local government. A Working Group set up under the auspices of the Premier’s Council on Crime Prevention is currently developing a Crime Prevention Resource Manual for local government. The manual says:
A Community Safety Program Discussion Paper prepared recently on behalf of Brisbane City Council concluded that:
1. Recognising that crime prevention is a responsibility shared across all council departments and targeting infrastructure provision and co-ordination to improve safety and reduce fear of crime; and 2. Promoting a co-ordinated response to community safety issues across the city and facilitating partnership projects.[3] Getting started - where is your local council up to? _________________________________________________________ Your first step is to find out where your council is up to with community safety and what their priorities are. There are strategies to help you do this on page 47 of this kit. Your research into council priorities may reveal one of three possible positions. These are: 1. Your council has a commitment to community safety but it is very fragmented. For example, the council may be involved in a broad range of activities which address community safety as a part of a broader project. However, these safety activities may not be co-ordinated across council or be part of a cohesive safety strategy. You may be able to help council to set up a Community Safety Committee. You could help them to include women’s safety on the community safety agenda. 2. Your council already has a Community Safety Committee or similar safety forum. In this instance, it may appropriate for you to join the committee and put women’s safety concerns onto the agenda. 3. Your council has no commitment nor any interest in community safety. In this instance, your role will be to gather community support for women’s safety and lobby council to develop an interest. The information in this section will help you with positions 1 and 2. The information in section 6 will help you with position 3. Setting up a Community Safety Committee _________________________________________________________ What is a Community Safety Committee? Many councils are now setting up Community Safety Committees as a multi-agency forum to address community safety issues. A Community Safety Committee takes responsibility for managing community safety issues. This includes researching, designing and evaluating programs, co-ordinating site task forces and providing advice to those implementing the strategies. A Community Safety Committee is a committee made up of representatives from council, police, other relevant agencies, community groups and members of the community. This type of committee has major benefits. It allows the participation of all interested agencies and groups. It can set goals. It prevents duplication of effort and waste of resources. It helps co-operation and sharing of resources, and it encourages information sharing.[4]
Below is a case study about Wollongong’s community safety committee. The committee calls itself SCAT (Safe Community Action Team). It is an example of a partnership on community safety which began as advisory and is now fully supported by council.
Who could be on the Community Safety Committee?
It is important to ensure representation from as many groups as possible. For example, women, people with disabilities, elderly, people from non-English speaking backgrounds, lesbian and gay groups, Aboriginal people etc. The Committee may need to encourage people to become members. It is important to let people and groups know that the Committee exists or is being formed, so that they can join. Some people may not want to be permanent members of the committee, but may wish to be involved on some projects. Women as members of the community safety committee To address women’s safety properly it is important to involve as many women as possible. You could do this by:
How big should the Committee be? The core Safety Committee needs to be easily co-ordinated and managed. Ideally, it should not be too big. At the same time, it is important not to turn away interested safety activists. If there are more than enough people, perhaps they could join other safety taskforces. Or the Committee could set up a Residents’ Action Group which might meet to discuss safety issues. Forming taskforces or project action teams In some instances, the Community Safety Committee could act as a steering committee for specific projects. A taskforce could focus on a specific problem, such as alcohol management or transport, or the bus/rail interchange. Members of the taskforce will be people who are interested or involved with a specific place or issue. For example, an alcohol management taskforce may include representatives from local council, licensees, police, health services, residents, and businesses. Each taskforce will have at least one representative from the Community Safety Committee. The chart below was developed for Brisbane City Council. It illustrates how a Safety Committee can relate to its taskforces.
Ideally, council would employ a Safety Officer or Crime Prevention Officer. Alternatively, this responsibility could be given to an existing staff member. This person would be responsible for organising meetings, co-ordinating members, administration and back-up for the Committees activities. They would be the liaison person for safety activities occurring both in and outside of the council. The Safety Officer could also work with the council’s Public Affairs Department on communicating safety activities to the wider community. Care needs to be taken to ensure that this position is adequately resourced. If the responsibility for co-ordinating safety activities is given to someone who already has a full-time job, it is unlikely that they will have adequate time to complete the tasks effectively.
What's needed is well planned and well managed and culturally inclusive multi-agency projects. It is crucial that someone is allocated the overall responsibility for specific results in crime prevention partnerships. Otherwise nobody makes sure it all happens. '
What resources does a Community Safety Committee require? Senior level commitment to the activities of the Committee is essential, both within council and from participating agencies. This means allocating staff the time to attend meetings and participate in safety planning and actions. Council will also need to allocate administrative resources to enable efficient running of the Committee. One of the Committees roles will be to identify safety projects and priorities. Some of these will require funds. You will probably have to write submissions to council for these funds. At the very least, we recommend a part-time (or better still a full-time) co-ordinator be employed or committed to the Safety Committee. It is possible to run these Committees with minimal budgets. However, it has been found in some councils (for example, Newcastle) that without committed funding, the Community Safety Committee was impossible to maintain.5 What does a Community Safety Committee do? The Community Safety Committee takes the leading role in community safety activities. Its overall aim is to reduce fear of crime and improve safety. The types of tasks a Committee may undertake include:
Below is a case study about Wollongong’s community safety committee. The committee calls itself SCAT (Safe Community Action Team). It is an example of a partnership on community safety which began as advisory and is now fully supported by council.
Develop safety strategies
Facilitate external safety partnerships
Co-ordinate safety activities
Evaluate safety activities
The elements of an effective safety strategy An effective safety strategy will need to:
Effective communication is crucial. The Committee needs to be able to discuss things clearly with the taskforces and the council. Communication with the community is also very important. The committee will need to tell people what activities are underway, what people are supposed to do, and how people can let the committee know if things are improving. The Committee may need to consider strategies to obtain information from groups who may not be involved in a safety forum. (Perhaps the Committee could approach community organisations which represent these groups and ask them the best way to get information out.) Ideally, the Committee needs to set up communication loops which enable information to be passed to and from the community. This will take some thought, and an understanding of who lives and works in your area. Putting women's safety onto the community safety agenda _________________________________________________________ While your local council may be committed to community safety, it may not have a clear understanding of women’s safety concerns. Our task is bring women’s safety concerns to public attention so they can be heard, understood, acknowledged and addressed. The following strategies and suggestions can help you to do this. Addressing women’s safety is a very important component of any community safety strategy. These suggestions are designed as additional actions which the safety committee can undertake. These actions will help ensure that women’s safety concerns are adequately addressed. Over time, we hope these actions will be incorporated into the way the committee explores safety problems. Only when this happens can we be sure that women’s specific safety needs are addressed. Raising the issue – use the Ask Any Woman video Start by showing the Ask Any Woman video to the your safety committee. In the video, women talk about feeling unsafe in public places. It raises the issues in a clear and non-threatening way. You could facilitate a discussion about the issues raised in the video. Use the Ask Any Woman Video Education Guidelines booklet to help you with discussion questions. (It is a good idea to be familiar with the video before you show it to the committee. Perhaps ask one or two other people to watch it with you. Discuss some of the issues among yourselves and review some of the background information in this kit, particularly sections 1 and 2.)
Researching women’s safety in public places Review the information in this kit Section 1 of this kit contains information given to the Safe Women Project by women about their experiences in public places. Section 2 contains information which can improve our understanding of fear of crime. Review official statistics about crime and safety The most reliable sources are:
Getting to know your local area – ‘Ask any woman’ Your most important research task will be to talk to women in your local community. The research method you use will need to be able to record women’s perceptions of safety and fear of crime. The questionnaire which we used in the Liverpool phone-in has been included in section 5. Use it as it is or adapt it for your area. It is important that women feel safe while telling their story. Encouraging women to participate as researchers can help. Women often report finding it easier to tell another woman about their experiences. As Rosemary Leonard from the University of Western Sydney found during the Liverpool phone-in:
Be specific about the problems – conduct safety audits When it becomes clear an area is perceived as unsafe, conduct a safety audit. Safety audits provide a practical starting point for improving safety in public places. They help us to identify what it is about a place that makes women feel unsafe. They also tell us what might make these places safer. You can do as many safety audits as you need to, and as often as you need to. You can even use safety audits to evaluate safety activities. For example, once safety measures have been implemented and operating for a while, do another safety audit. Compare this to the original audit and see if things have improved. (A Women’s Safety Audit guide is contained in the sleeve of this kit. This will tell you everything you need to know about how to conduct your women’s safety audits.) Many myths surround women’s safety. People sometimes make judgements about the issue without fully understanding the problems. As a result of these judgements, women continue to feel unsafe and are denied access to public places. It is always necessary to challenge these myths and judgements, even if this is a long-term process. A useful way to approach this task can be to ask questions which explore the myth more fully. For example, who benefits from the belief contained in the myth? And what effect does this belief have on women’s safety in public places? The Safe Women Project encountered a number of these resistances and ‘common responses’ while working to make public places safer for women. The most common ones follow. Myth: Men are more at risk in public places. Fact: Women and men are at risk of becoming victims of crime in public places. Statistics indicate that men are slightly more likely to be the victims of personal crimes. A Crime and Safety survey published by Australian Bureau of Statistics in 1994, found that of those in NSW who were victims of personal crime in the previous 12 month period, 57.8% were men. However, care needs to be taken when interpreting statistics about violence. Personal crimes against women are often not reported to police. For example, the Australian Bureau of Statistics estimates that only 25% of sexual assaults are reported to the police. Women are far more likely to experience fear of crime than men. Myth: Women should avoid risky situations. Fact: Women can be at risk of violence when they are at home and when they are in a public place. Women are often told to change their own behaviour to avoid risky situations. This response is not appropriate and suggests that women should take personal responsibility for the behaviour of violent men. This response does not address the problem, nor does it make women any less vulnerable to violence. It does not reduce women’s fear when in public or domestic situations. When women are asked to avoid risky places, they are asked to restrict their lives. They are denied access to community resources and are denied the right to actively participate in decisions which affect their lives. Consider these (common) conflicting messages:
This is a safe area to live. Fact: When people say an area is safe, they usually measure this by the number of crimes which have been recorded. People may look at these figures and see that the crimes they fear hardly ever happened in their area. This can be a useful reality check, but it does not necessarily make people feel any less fearful. And because this ‘fact’ does not automatically reduce fear of crime, there can still be a safety problem. Fear of crime is real and has an impact on our lives. Fear of crime is complex and many factors can make people fearful in public places. People may be fearful because the lights are always out, or the station is always vandalised, or groups of ‘suspicious’ people are always hanging around. We need to apply our safety activities to changing the things about public places which contribute to people feeling vulnerable to attack. Building your arguments Sometimes you may need to build arguments for taking action in order to illustrate the importance of your issues and to convince others that action is needed. The most powerful tool will be making sure that the women in your local community speak out about their safety concerns. The problems will then be able to emerge loud and clear. Sometimes, arguments work well if they are placed in financial terms. Fear of crime does cost the community. For example, a service such as public transport loses revenue because women do not feel safe. At times when the bottom line is the most important thing, the ‘cost’ of fear can be very convincing. To help you build strong, powerful arguments you can also use the information in Reasons to make public places safer for women on section 2, and the councils’ charter in section 3. Understanding the complexity of problems identified Some of the places which women identify as unsafe, and some of the factors which contribute to this feeling, are very complex. For example, women often said they felt unsafe when groups of young people ‘hang out’ on the street. The solutions to this fear will not necessarily be straightforward. ‘Breaking up’ or ‘moving on’ groups of young people may not always be the most appropriate solution and in some instances may be as unjust as women being denied access to public places because of fear of crime. For young people, hanging out in public places may be something they enjoy doing, something that is a part of their culture and community. Or it may be something they do because there isn’t much else to do. It is likely to be a combination of factors. When exploring the problems that emerge as a result of your local research, try to explore them fully. This will mean talking to everyone concerned, even those in the ‘problem’ group. When developing solutions, consider all stakeholders. What is a solution to one group may be a problem for another. The complexity of problems such as these stresses the importance of community and social development strategies in community safety solutions. Talking about sexual harassment and sexual assault The Safe Women Project experience has been that many public safety forums have difficulty discussing sexual harassment or sexual assault. Yet sexual harassment and sexual assault are crimes which women often fear. Until they are discussed and strategies developed which help to prevent these crimes, women’s concern about safety in public places cannot be adequately addressed. To help you put these crimes onto the safety agenda, we have included a Violence against women fact sheet. This resource defines harassment, stalking, sexual harassment and sexual assault and indicates the incidence of these crimes in NSW and Australia. It also includes some practical suggestions on how we can begin to take public responsibility for reducing the incidence of these crimes. The fact sheet is in section 5. Improving safety in public places – practical resources Women have identified a number of factors about public places which can make them feel unsafe. In section 5 there are specific resources to help make public places safer. Each contains practical steps which can help to address the primary concerns identified. Each resource identifies the problems, suggests who needs to be involved in a safety taskforce, and gives some practical suggestions about steps each stakeholder can take toward improving safety. They are provided as guides. You could use them as they are, or as discussion starters for your Committee or taskforce. Specific public places in your area may bring specific issues, so you may need to adapt the resources to your local area. Management of public places Ongoing management and maintenance of public places is an important factor in women feeling safe. Ensuring there is a plan for the maintenance of public places will be an important task for the safety committee. This is particularly crucial when one council department or safety partner builds a place, and then another has responsibility for managing it. It won’t matter how many safety features have been built into the place if it becomes overgrown, or damage is not repaired or graffiti not removed. Allocating responsibilities for who does what will be a key component of the maintenance plan. Evaluate safety activities Regularly evaluate the safety activities implemented by the committee. Ask women if they feel safer. Conduct regular safety audits of public places. This will help to assess whether all the safety strategies are working, or determine if some strategies are more effective than others. By evaluating safety activities, you will gather useful data on safety activities which can be used to develop safer communities. Work in partnership with state and federal governments State and federal governments also have an interest in reducing crime and promoting safety. They have developed many policies and programs which work towards these goals. These may provide local community safety committees with opportunities to work together with state and federal government on particular projects. For example, both state and federal governments are committed to strategies to reduce violence against women. They may be interested in work being done to improve women’s safety in public places. You may be able to seek funding or support from them to implement programs in your local area. Hopefully, a NSW Regional Violence Prevention Specialist is on your committee. If they are not able to be a member, you can still work with them. They can help you to find out what is happening at the government policy level. You can also ask them to take your women’s safety issues to the Regional Reference Group which they are convening. The Regional Reference Group has members from government and non-government agencies who are involved in responding to violence against women. Government departments may be running community development programs which your committee could become involved in. For example, your local community health centre may be running drug and alcohol programs or the Department of Education may be running violence prevention programs at your local school. Many anti-violence resources have been produced for schools. These resources aim to reduce violence and address gender based violence in schools and teach non-violent behaviours. Encouraging your local school to use these resources could be a valuable community safety activity. For more information, contact your local school or the Department of Education. Incorporating safety activities into council activities Safety activities need to become part of the day-to-day activities of council. Having senior level staff from various council departments on your committee will help. Other ways of ensuring that safety activities are sealed into the way council does business include:
The challenges for safety partners _________________________________________________________ Effective safety strategies will need to understand the diversity of the people in their communities, their different needs and how these might change over time. These communities include women and men, the young and old, homosexual and straight people, people with disabilities, people from different cultures. They will require respectful and careful interpretation of safety concerns. They will mean striking a balance between many possible conflicting needs. For example:
Achieving these balances may take time. Certainly it will involve vision, co-operation and commitment — and perhaps most importantly, a desire to create a space which promotes maximum participation for the maximum number of people. Public places which are safer for women are safer for everyone. Further reading _________________________________________________________ Australian Bureau of Statistics 1994, Crime and Safety survey Crime Prevention Division 1997, Crime Prevention Resource Manual DRAFT NSW Attorney General’s Department Hauritz, M. and Homel, R. 1997, Brisbane City Council – Community Safety Program discussion paper Griffith University Salmelainen, P. and Coumarelos, C. 1993, ‘Adult Sexual Assault in NSW’, Crime and Justice Bulletin no. 20 , NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research Endnotes _________________________________________________________
__________________________________ | Introduction | Women Talking about Safety In Public Places | Community Safety and Women's Fear Of Crime | Partners In Community Safety | A Community Safety Forum | From Wasteland To Heartland | Raising The Issue Of Women's Safety In Your Community | Contacts | |
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