4. In which ways is the initiative creative and innovative?
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o Strategy 1:
Reducing crime-related social costs through modification of the crime policy from a countermeasure to preventive outlook.
It is a fact that countless crimes have been committed under the anonymity of cities that have lost the sense of community. Even CCTVs in which we have a blind faith are only useful for chasing after suspects after crimes have taken place. 95% of the crimes being committed in the city of Seoul are found to be mostly theft- and violence-related and owe their occurrence to the built environmental factors that invite crime. Of these two crime categories, 62% takes place on streets and other public places, while 41% happens at night between 8 p.m. and 4 a.m. As these data imply, by improving such built environmental factors that invite crime as dark allies and other blind spots, making plain the existence of community, and thus deterring criminal intentions, the City seeks to prevent crime and reduce crime-related social costs (estimated to be KRW 20 trillion every year.) In addition, expansion of such activities over the world is the ultimate purpose of the Project.
o Strategy 2:
Reducing crime rates through rather revitalization of old city sections than development of new towns.
The City has developed diverse and sustainable programs, rather than new towns which cost a great deal of money and time, by adopting a modification method gained through development of a variety of crime preventive designs to the physical characteristics of surroundings.
o Strategy 3: Laying a community foundation not for but together with community members.
Creating jobs and thus strengthening community economies, keeping the surrounding environment, and building community watch facilities are important for preventing crime. But the most effective crime prevention is the action of each community member cultivating the environment in which he/she is as the base of his/her life in a sustainable manner and thereby building trust in one another. Through the process of developing ideas for crime preventive design together with community members, the City could get a better understanding of what each community is capable of in terms of physical and human resources, and through this understanding, help develop and nurture the identity of community, and help the community look out for itself.
o Strategy 4: Helping restore the lost sense of community
As cities threw out their unique physical characteristics one by one on their headlong drives towards urbanization, and as their residents began to see their houses not as the place of settlement but as a means of self-enrichment, the sense of community that once held villages and cities together and safe started to crumble as well. Meanwhile, old city sections laying victim of the stampede of redevelopment began to see a steady inflow of old and sick people living alone, the handicapped, foreign workers, migrant day laborers, along with rising crime rates. As in the Yeonni-dong case, community members took on an offer the City provided, turned it into a change to act together with a common goal, and has since developed various community programs. Moreover, they have regained the lost sense of community, caring for less-fortunate neighbors with the produce they farmed in the community garden, and sharing the profits and wisdom of community, which can be described as a form of virtuous cycle.
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5. Who implemented the initiative and what is the size of the population affected by this initiative?
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The City has spared no efforts to solve problems together with as many people related to the Project as possible. By gathering people and officials representing communities, organizations, schools, the police, district and section offices in the areas selected for implementation of the Project, talking about and analyzing with them diverse issues facing the areas, the City has sought for innovative ways to tackle the issues.
In the Yeomni-dong case, for example, through a number of discussions with people and official representing the community center of the section and the district office and police station in charge of the section, the City got a better grasp of the types of crimes plaguing the Project area and measured the feasibility of implementing Project programs in a sustainable manner; listened to their views on the programs to be implemented, discussed about administrative factors to consider in case the programs need modifications; and informed of difficulties the police face in dealing with the crimes and of ways to receive police support in an efficient and effective manner. Specifically, through a public hearing held at a local church, the City explained to community members about the Project, the designs features and programs it had developed for the area, and the timetable for implementation of the programs. Another hearing was held at a local elementary school at which parents were informed of the Project, programs and timetable and given by the police an instruction on how to avoid and protect themselves from the types of crime afflicting the area. Of note, the detailed information the City gathered through these meetings about renters and house owners in the area and their locations proved crucial to the City’s draft of programs agreeable to community members with conflicting interests.
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6. How was the strategy implemented and what resources were mobilized?
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o Cooperating with various organizations.
The City has actively involved itself in any opportunities through which it could create synergy for the Project together with NGOs, co-ops, private businesses. In addition, eschewing the old practice of doing business on its way, the City has sought cooperation with its municipal districts whenever possible and given its consulting support to other divisions interested in carrying out their own CPTED programs.
o Securing new funding sources and utilizing the superior technical ability of private businesses.
The City has contributed to society by developing in cooperation with private businesses solutions that suit target Project areas and reflects the characteristics of the businesses involved. A partial list of the business sponsors of the Project is as follows:
- Samhwa Paints supplying all paint for community art and other related programs;
- POSCO C&C providing steel materials for all steel structures built for the programs as well as volunteers for community art programs;
- KT Linkus equipping its public phone booths with safety features as emergency shelter;
- ADT Caps offering a security system ideal for single women at less than US$10 and developing an anti-theft “media art” for traditional marketplaces;
- Korea Seven modifying its 7-Eleven stores into a 24-hour “safe house”; and
- Samsung funded the remodeling of abandoned structures into modern community centers.
All these corporate sponsorships amounted to about KRW 440 million.
o Skill donations by experts and their volunteering.
As for skill donations, Korea’s eight leading artists donated their consulting service on community art programs; the Department of Psychology at Baekseok University offered counseling service for students of a junior high school afflicted by juvenile crimes and societal neglect; and a total of 300 some students, teachers, and parents volunteered their time and effort to help carry out community art programs.
o Volunteering by local church, schools and local businesses.
The City has sought to maximize the effect of Project programs through active use of local resources. With cooperation from local church officials, a community watch group has been formed, making regular rounds of their community after every Wednesday and Sunday service, picking trash along the main alley and reminding passers-by as well as community members of their presence and purposes. Local design high school and elementary school are active in helping make their neighborhoods clean and fun through their participation of diverse local events. Teachers and students of an art high school regularly volunteer their time to paint alley gates brightly in an effort to mask blind spots dotting their school neighborhood known for its concentration of one room housing. A local café provides a space for community members to gather and shares community news through a podcast service.
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7. Who were the stakeholders involved in the design of the initiative and in its implementation?
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The Project’s leading programs that have been appraised by the media as success are as follows: The Yeomni-dong case.
o Turning a scary alley into a fitness circuit/community space.
The most remarkable transformation about high-crime area has taken place on “Salt Way”, a 1.7 km-long chain of uphill allies. What used to be a dark alley even nearby residents feared to venture at night has been turned into a fitness circuit, with exercise stations interspersed at regular intervals. The surrounding area had been devoid of any amenity for exercising, let alone cultural activity. The fitness circuit, comprising A and courses, has been developed by professional physical trainers to the characteristics of the surroundings. The new alleyway also features an information board showing a map with numbers indicating houses along the alley, and LED lights with numbers from 1 to 69, indicating the houses and informing passers-by of their locations in case of making calls for help.
o Equipping “Safe Houses” with anti-crime features.
In addition to exercise stations and blight lights, along Salt Way there are six “safe houses”, each equipped IP camera and emergency bell and marked with a yellow gate. The residents of the safe houses are well trained by the police as to what to do when the bell is pushed by someone in need of help. The well-lit yellow gates are very visible at night and the cameras are regularly maintained. The idea of the safe house was suggested by community members living near blind spots.
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8. What were the most successful outputs and why was the initiative effective?
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o Post-program evaluations through the Korea Institute of Criminology.
The Korea Institute of Criminology is in charge of analyzes the impact of CPTED programs on community members’ fears of the danger of crimes afflicting their communities. To see if the City’s CPTED programs have any impact on crime rates in the target areas, KIC traces back the crime rates to a minimum 3-4 years based on the National Policy Agency’s crime statistics.
o Findings of an evaluation analysis (March 2013, five months after Project launch).
KIC found out through a survey of community members of Yeomni-dong that 78.6% of the respondents said they were aware of the effects of the programs, and of the figure, 83.3% reported satisfactory of the effects. As for their fear of crime, 9.1% of the respondents indicated a decrease as individuals and 13.6% indicated a decrease for their families, while 13.8% said their community attachment grew over the time.
o Findings of an evaluation after one year (April 2014).
The second KIC survey conducted one year after the launch of the Project found that the rate of five leading crime types decreased over the year, and that the robbery rate on Salt Way alone has dropped12% and a zero case of rape was reported.
o Overseas recognitions .
The City’s CPTED Project was introduced to the global community of CPTED in October 2012 through the international CPTED seminar held in Seoul, and acclaimed in the June issue of Crime Prevention & Community Safety, as the world’s first CPTED case applied to old city sections.
o Project impact on crime rates to be confirmed in 2017.
The effect of all CPTED programs on their respective community members is analyzed and evaluated every year, and concrete findings regarding their impact on crime rates are scheduled to be made public in 2017.
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9. What were the main obstacles encountered and how were they overcome?
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Main difficulties: cooperation with related institutions and development of innovative ideas of innovate crime preventive design
A key to successful operation of Project programs was formation of cooperative ties with various institutions. As they have their own agendas and priorities that are often at odd with one another, however, nurturing relationships that are mutually beneficial to one another was a real challenge. In addition, developing innovative crime preventive design ideasthat would appeal to all stakeholders proved to be another challenge. Following are steps the City have taken towards overcoming the two main challenges:
Solution method 1: perseverance in dialogue and persuasion
The City conducted a number of face-to-face conversations with people and officials representing target Project areas and related institutions and managed to convince each group that the Project was mutually beneficial.
Solution method 2: Developing design ideas together with stakeholders
During an initial research process the City broke down diverse city crimes into type, hour, and location with help from police, education offices, district governments and other institutions, and analyzed the thus derived information using the Global Information System in order to identify the characteristics of the target areas. As for developing design ideas, service design methodology hasbeen used. Service design methodology is a way of planning and organizing people, infrastructure, communication and material components of a service in order to improve its quality and the interaction between service providers and customers. By applying the method of getting results based on the multidirectional analysis of data gathered through an in-depth research conducted by experts of diverse fields sharing the common goal of solving one problem, the City has developed design ideas for Project programs.
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