1. Introduction. Massimo Bricocoli, Police Academy of Catalunia, november 9 th 2001 p. 1

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1 International Conference on Safety and Crime Prevention by Urban Design 8 th and 9 th November 2001, Police Academy of Catalonia, Mollet del Vallès (Barcelona) The Local Police as a pioneer on the road towards an integrated and participated approach to urban safety and risk perception? A cross-reading of experiences in Milano and Torino. Massimo Bricocoli 1, Politecnico di Milano, Istituto Universitario di Architettura Venezia contact: Corso San Gottardo, Milano, Italia, massimo.bricocoli@polimi.it 1. Introduction Urban safety is an issue, or better a set of issues, that I will refer to as complex and multidimensional. Therefore, I will exclude the possibility of describing safety and risk perception and of defining policies and strategies according to a single point of view and perspective. I will state: - the need of a serious process of problem setting before relying in any receipe of problem solving in the domain of safety and risk perception issues, - participation and coordination (while integration tends to remain as an academic ketch word) among different actors as key factors for policy effectiveness. As a urban planner, I have been for some years sceptical and uneasy with the issue of urban safety and risk perception. On one side for a deep dissatisfaction with the attitude of architects and planners of relying too much in the power of design as a tool to govern the space. On the other side because of strong stereotypes I had about Police work. Being more and more involved in planning processes in which the interaction with a multitude of actors, both coming from public and private institutions and from local contexts (inhabitants, shop keepers, ) I have started to consider urban safety/risk perception as a very interesting and dense issue which involves so many other issues which I consider quite relevant to understand urban change and to improve the quality of life in our cities. My interest in safety and risk perception has grown within the frame of processes aimed at tackling multidimensional problems within local urban contexts through the participation and integration of a plurality of actors. In the field, more and more, my work has been to set and decline the issue of Safety and risk perception starting from the specific features of a local context. Urban safety, for many aspects is for me something like a label, which I am not so fond of but which I recognise as effective in communicative terms to condense a wide set of interrelated problems which citizens very often wouldn t know how to isolate form each other and name differently. This is to say that in the recent years, I have been widely and intensively involved in professional and academic work in the field of integrated renewal of urban neighbourhoods (in Torino, Cinisello Balsamo, Wien) and in a very intense and interactive work with Local Police Departments (Milano, Torino). Since one year I am also developing a totally new experience in didactics, as I am in 1 These notes result from an intensive field work which I conducted with a very generous and wide collaboration of colleagues, local actors, civil servants of different public services. Particularly I am thankful to the staff of Avventura Urbana, GRM, Marianella Sclavi responsible of the PAS of Corso Grosseto (Torino), Mr. Manna and Mr.Vassallo Chief Officers of the Polizia Municipale di Torino, Mr. Giovanni Magnano, director of Progetto Speciale Periferie Torino, and Simona Pognant with whom I collaborate in the work with the Local Police of Milano. Massimo Bricocoli, Police Academy of Catalunia, november 9 th 2001 p. 1

2 charge of the design and coordination of courses and programs within Police Schools (Comune di Milano, Regione Lombardia, Comune di Verona)! 2. Urban safety policies and Local Police in Italy. In the debate and in the experiences developed by local Governments in Italy in the field of urban safety, a central focus is on the role played by the Local Police, which is directly depending form the Major and has the city administrative borders as domain of competence. While at its origin the Local Police was founded with the specific aim of rule and order within city life, the development of motorization favoured a progressive change in its role towards traffic control. Since the early 90 s both the introduction by law of direct election of the city major and the new responsabilities given to the City governments over the domain of Safety and public order started a slow but deep process of change in the role attributed and played by the Local Police. The involvement of the Local Police in policies for urban safety has been especially marked by the development of a new proximity and area based attitude in the service through the introduction of the Vigile di quartiere, or neighbourhood police programs. While the Local Police always had its roots (by definition and constitution) within the administrative borders of the local government and of urban centres (from the smallest village to the large city), the recent policies express a clear orientation towards: - a strategy of proximity, that is to say of closer and more intense interaction between Local Police agents and citizens/local actors, - an organisation of the service with an area based approach, that is to say focusing on a specific area of the city and taking into consideration specific issues of a local context, - a systemic and problem oriented approach to policing instead of the traditional law enforcement oriented and going by the book approach, open and sensitive to community problems in their wide range 3. Milano and Torino: a crossed reading. I will get into the interest of the new practices referring and focusing on the experience of the City of Milano and Torino in which I am actually working. A crossed analysis of the policies of the two Local Government turns out to be particularly interesting. The following notes will briefly summarise the two experiences focusing on the differences in the development of policies: in Milano centred on safety and local police while in Torino shaped on intensive/extensive strategy of urban renewal in peripheral neighbourhoods. Milano. The accent on the Police. Short term and Vigili di quartiere as pioneers The project of the Vigili di quartiere, neighbourhood police, was launched in june The service was activated in 30, then 60 and recently 150 neighbourhood of the city. In a period of hot political debate over the issue of safety, the aim of the Administration was to: - activate a constant observation point, - guarantee a first level of proximity between the Local Government and the citizens identify critical issues to be tackled by the City in order to improve safety and reduce risk perception. Massimo Bricocoli, Police Academy of Catalunia, november 9 th 2001 p. 2

3 The competences of the agents were spread over a wide range: from crime prevention to traffic regulation, from activating responsible sectors within the administration in order to solve specific problems especially of maintenance to starting links with social services on specific issues of youngsters and elderly. The main task given to the agents involved was to develop what could be called a situated knowledge of the neighbourhood they are in charge of. The process of choosing the neighbourhoods in which the program was to be started was intended as a chance of setting also an inter-institutional network among several actors responsible for safety in the city. In order to draw a sort of map of risk of the city, an operative institutional Board was appointed involving 8 representatives of: the Local Police, the Carabinieri, the Polizia di Stato, the Guardia di Finanza, the Pretura, the Tribunale, the Tribunale dei Minorenni, the Direzione Investigativa Antimafia. Statistical data not only turned out to be inadequate to describe the state of the art at the scale of neighbourhoods but also to represent the dimension of risk perception and social alarm locally expressed. The result of designing a shared map of risk of the city has produced much more then a product (The map was obviously vague and immediately overpassed by reality!): it produced a process of interaction among actors which never had been discussing about their work facing a map of the city. In a way they have been forced to give spatialise their knowledge. The process contributed to: - better set the role of the Vigile di quartiere and the relationships with the other State polices - to produce a choice of the first 30 and then 60 neighbourhoods in which the service had to be primarily activated with no conflict among the several committee of citizens which were pressing to have their own policeman. After nearly one year, I was asked to develop a survey in order to identify strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the service. The survey was developed within a very close collaboration with the chiefs officers and personal of the Local Police. The 15 officers in charge of the different districts of the city were interviewed over organisational issues, while a very intense work started in the field. With a colleague, I started a process of participant observation, walking side by side to 40 single agents in their daily activity. To give evidence to the variety and complexity of the work done by the agents, we listened and collected stories and concrete experiences, developing thick descriptions and organising several meeting in order to communicate the scenery we were designing together over the issues and the problems around which the agents themselves have been building and designing their identity as neighbourhood police. At the end of an afternoon of work, this is how a Vigile di quartiere sums up his view on the issue of safety Like in many others difficult neighbourhoods of the city, the problems of Gabrio Rosa are not only of public order, of drug dealing or criminality, and nor of simple social or residential exclusion, and not even of dysfunctioning or mismatch of public services. The process through which a council housing estate decays is not instantaneous - you see. What happen is that there is a higher concentration of disadvantaged people (low wages, social problems, handicaps...)...this brings to higher exposition to delinquency, crisis of rules regulating living together lack of daily maintenance, decay of public spaces, loss of relations among the inhabitants loss of legality risk unsafety decay. The problems with which the Vigile di Quartiere is asked to deal are constantly across the border of risk perception by the inhabitants decay and bad maintenance, small criminality. Very easily the Vigile di Quartiere is addressed as an optimal referent, but in reality, it is quite impossible for him to be the one who drives through the solution of problems. Massimo Bricocoli, Police Academy of Catalunia, november 9 th 2001 p. 3

4 With an effective metaphor, we represented the Vigile di Quartiere like a mobile front office, like a mobile counter. It s not my responsability versus Burn out syndrome This is a very usual sentence in the routine of the bureaucracy of civil servants when they are facing problems that are not easily referring to an existing set of competences, to an existing procedure. Acting continuous sidewalk encounters, this is an answer that the Vigile di Quartiere cannot give, because: - she/he has a uniform and therefore is very easily recognise d as a representative of the Local Government in areas where there are very few institutional referents, - she/he is recognised not only because of the role (the uniform) but day after day as a specific person, even by name, - she/he day after day gets involved and feels responsible in taking care of the neighbourhood. The drama then is that the front office is lacking a back office to give support and to produce effective answers and results to constant demands. The risk then is that the Vigile di Quartiere becomes a lightning conductor, with all the evident consequences of burn out syndrome. Torino. The accent on urban renewal. Medium term and participative planning in the Progetto Speciale Periferie. The Progetto Speciale Periferie was launched in 1997 as a transversal body within the bureaucratic organisation of the Torino City Administration. Bringing together technicians and civil servants of several departments, the task was to promote, develop and coordinate a wide range of renewal projects in peripheral areas of the city (either financed by the European Union, the National Government, the Region Piemonte, the City itself) and to develop innovative approach to urban regeneration through an integrated and participative approach. The PRU (Programma di Recupero Urbano) of Corso Grosseto is one of them. Ruled by a national law and financed by the region a PRU is a urban planning tool aimed at urban regeneration through public and private partnerships of a urban area suffering from physical decay, economic decline, social exclusion. According to regional guidelines, the City of Torino developed innovative tools and programs in order to integrate the physical regeneration and urban design projects (provided by the three PRU financed and promoted in the city) with social interventions. Piano di Accompagnamento Sociale, PAS, (literally social accompanying plan ), is the name given to this local and specific set of activities structured in a three years program and aimed at: - developing a socially friendly attitude of the urban renewal plan and to improve social and economic local development through active involvement of local actors, that is to say the population living and working in the area - promoting better communication and interaction between the city administration and local actors. The area covered by the PRU of Corso Grosseto is quite large. The main focus is on the renewal of two public housing estates, very different in architectural and demographic terms: One, the Q13, in via Sospello is a council estate build in the late 20 s, concentrated in a single large block and consisting of very dense housing articulated on a system of inward facing Massimo Bricocoli, Police Academy of Catalunia, november 9 th 2001 p. 4

5 courtyards (a kind of labyrinth). The Q13 was at the origin planned and design for the lower middle class, mainly consisting of older civil servants which after years deserved public housing and felt privileged to live there. Public facilities for the residents such as a kindergarten and an indoor swimming pool were complementing the public services of the area. In the last few decades the neighbourhood has been facing a very serious decay both in the physical structure of the buildings and in the social structures of the inhabitants which is mainly composed of elderly people and of problematic newcomers. The population of the estate is of nearly 1600 inhabitants. The other neighbourhood in the area of intervention is called Q37, Via Fiesole, is quite different, consisting of a wider council housing estate build in the mid 70 s, with a typology of high towers and with three long buildings closing the development along a main road. Even before the buildings were finished several of them had been illegally occupied by family migrating to Torino from Southern Italy and this contributed to set the stigmatisation of the neighbourhood since its early times. The population of the estate is nearly of 2700 inhabitants. The Piano di Accompagnamento Sociale of Corso Grosseto has been developed by an associated consultancy group (Avventura Urbana, GRM, Marianella Sclavi) and articulated in a sequence of coordinated interventions which represent the core of a participative planning process: - a deep survey with interviews and outreach activities which provided an insight over the two neighbourhoods and a first set of issues, - two public consultations organised according to the planning for real approach, which involved a large number of inhabitants in the setting of priorities and general guidelines, - a series of open air events such as concerts, public art, neighbourhood parties which promoted and represented a more and more successful mean to reconquer neglected and conflictual public spaces to the use of inhabitants. A key and permanent action of the program is represented by the two local offices which have been opened in each estate (and named Punto.Cincinnato and Punto.Sospello ) and which were meant to be the front offices where relevant issues would be identified and given a priority through a constant and medium term work. The offices have been set in two existing and unused spaces, with direct access from the street and located in highly accessible positions. The experience developed by Cecilia and Paola, the two young architects in charge of the work, is considered highly innovative: while the design and architectural competences has been very useful, they have gained success and legitimation through a definitively crossover set of activities: active listening, collecting tales, setting problem frames and agendas, reconstructing procedures, creative conflict mediation, institutional and non institutional networking, promoting and supporting local initiatives The experience of Punto.Sospello and Punto.Cincinnato has shown how a constant presence in a neighbourhood under urban renewal allows for example: - to develop more effective interactions between local actors and institutions (such as the Housing Company) reducing time occurring for the procedures and selecting priorities of interventions, - to collect and organise the specific demands that single inhabitants express and therefore to formulate answers which can effective in addressing general issues, - to develop collaborative relationships that allow to tackle a complex problem in a comprehensive way and sharing responsibilities among each responsible actor (including the inhabitants themselves) Within the frame of the PAS, a specific work was developed over the issue of safety and risk perception in the two estates aimed at: - setting the problems through the involvement of local actors, - defining possible actions to be implemented. Massimo Bricocoli, Police Academy of Catalunia, november 9 th 2001 p. 5

6 The work was developed since the public consultation when a Listening pole was set, having two people actively listening to any issue related to safety/risk perception problems as perceived by the inhabitants and consisted in: - an intensive interviewing of inhabitants and local actors (social workers, school directors, volunteers, ) aimed at producing a shared map of problems and - in selecting some of them which could eventually be addressed in a medium term. The maps of spaces and times of unsafety have allowed to better specify the uses of common spaces, the interactions and conflicts among different users populations, in reference to the specific sites and shapes of buildings and open spaces. In this perspective, the output was that the interventions had to be developed both in: - a better design of the structure and of the management of physical space as well as in - active intervention in the domain of conflict management and control of illegal behaviour. 4. A brief cross evaluation of Local Government policies in urban planning and safety related issues In the previous two paragraphs I have tried to summarise the main features and key nodes emerging from the experience in Milano and Torino. Here is a brief scheme: MILANO TORINO accent on the Police (local police + national) accent on integrated and participated urban renewal early and well developed practice of neighbourhood police, nationally recognised mid term investment in - a different organisation of the Local Government structure - urban renewal programs Best practices nationally recognised RISK! lack of back office and of structural interventions (urban renewal and maintenance) RISK! (Politically and in public debate) lack of explicit policies on safety systemic burn out syndrome of neighbourhood police before a change is introduced in planning attitudes! possible added value and synergies in introducing partnership between new neighbourhood police & urban renewal processes!! Massimo Bricocoli, Police Academy of Catalunia, november 9 th 2001 p. 6

7 5. The added value in Torino. The Local Government and an experimental partnership between planners and local police! Actually, the achievement of an added value and synergies deriving from a partnership between local police and urban renewal processes seem to be more feasible in the context of Torino. A positive and constructive cooperation was developed with the Local Police Officers and an experimental action was proposed, approved and developed in the context of the PAS of the of Corso Grosseto area. After what was considered an innovative and successful experience, it is under discussion a widening of the experience on a general level, introducing police/planning partnerships in any area undertaking urban renewal. In the period between April and June 2001 the newly introduced neighbourhood police service was experimented on a smaller area, corresponding to the two different public housing estates where the PAS concentrates its actions. Every friday morning, 2 agents have been supported in their service by the architects working in the neighbourhood: - introducing them to the local context and issues, - introducing them to the relevant local actors and inhabitants, - walking side by side in the streets and courtyards, - dealing together and facing specific problems identified as priorities. The fixed objectives were: - the improvement of safety conditions and especially of risk perception for the inhabitants, - the support and the valorisation of the proximity service granted by the Local Police (avoidance of burn out syndrome!), - the activation of collaborative relations among the plurality of subjects that can be in charge of the rules of living together (inhabitants, Local Police, Public Housing Company, City Council, other Polices ), - the change of the image and stereotypes: on the side of the Police towards these neighbourhoods ( that s a Bronx, I will never walk there alone! ) and on the side of the inhabitants towards the police ( they are absent and useless, they always pass by and never stop! ) A previous meeting at the Local Police Department with the group of agents that would have participated to the service was decisive to define their anxieties, worries, perceptions and to involve them in the process (at least to activate expectations and curiosity!). First RESULTS... The experience of the service has been very lively and various. The photographs I am presenting will give a light idea of it. Concrete and tangible results were very decisive to give credit to the service and the support of the network set by the architects in a longer period turned out to be a key factor to avoid burning out! In the evaluation developed also through common meetings, there was a clear need of distinguish quantitative/direct and qualitative/indirect/results! Massimo Bricocoli, Police Academy of Catalunia, november 9 th 2001 p. 7

8 QUANTITATIVE/DIRECT RESULTS QUALITATIVE/INDIRECT RESULTS Incredible reduction of the number of abandoned cars in the courtyards Avoidance of illegal use of common space by inhabitants (es. deposit of steel and iron ) Promotion and re-introduction of rules for the regulation of living together (flower pots on balconies, dogs, nuisances ) Overcoming previous stereotypes ( this neighbourhood is not the Bronx I had in mind before working in it! ) Overcoming and hostile attitude towards the police and switch to a collaborative approach Improvement of the climate due to the active presence of institutional referents (increased use of public spaces) Increasing number of women coming out into the scene (due to the presence of policewomen!) 6. CPTED, inertia of planning approaches and opening perspectives The opening of a debate over urban safety and risk perception might have a vital and positive effect in the development of a more effective planning attitude towards the improvement of life in the city. Issues of safety/risk perception set a complex but clear correspondence among elements that urban planners usually tend to consider of other nature, not of their matter. These different and multiple elements, which might seem not relevant and secondary, make visible the complex system of interactions that drive a citizen to feel unsafe when his perception of the living environment is marked by a general feeling of abandonment and of decay or to cry for more police when the constant level of conflicts he experiences with his neighbours drive to live in anxiety and to perceive the daily environment as out of any regulation of living together and of possible collaboration. On one side the demands that the inhabitants of neighbourhoods involved in urban renewal processes express in terms of unsafety and risk perception should drive planners to take responsibilities towards a greater competence and attitude in listening and observing the way space is used, conflicts, the dynamics of living together that set daily life in these neighbourhoods. On the other side, as far as policies for urban safety are concerned, whenever the issue of safety is dealt referring to specific contexts and localities and through the lenses, the sights and the tales of those who live or work there, this general and vague label becomes far more meaningful and allows to investigate the multiplicity of problems hidden in the opacity of a term that seems at a first glance the most adequate to name a mix of troubles/inconveniences that is difficult to express and which are not rated in hard database over offences and criminality. But, change is very often not linear and sometimes difficult. Massimo Bricocoli, Police Academy of Catalunia, november 9 th 2001 p. 8

9 While Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design CPTED (towards which I have already expressed a partial criticism in those cases it isn t strictly connected to management / maintenance issues) in Italy is still something vague in an uncertain academic debate, the practices and experience in some of our major cities seem to reveal that: Safety and risk perception, neighbourhood decay and social exclusion, the design and management of public spaces require: - not only innovative and adequate policies and projects according to an integrated approach to urban problems (which at the moment is more a slogan in the academic debate rather than of the reality of practice), - but also and especially a DEEP change which is both organisational (within the traditional departmental and vertical structure of the bureaucracy of the Public administration for example) and cultural (within the attitudes of different and conflicting disciplines and specialities). Massimo Bricocoli, Police Academy of Catalunia, november 9 th 2001 p. 9

10 PRODUCTS short term PROCESSES medium/long term QUANTITY NEIGHBOURHOOD POLICEMAN QUALITY Traditional, existing evaluation tools! How to evaluate the work? A. Pressure of the politicians! B. Difficulties within the Police structure (inertia in changing attitudes)! Massimo Bricocoli, Police Academy of Catalunia, november 9 th 2001 p. 10

11 FRONT OFFICE BACK OFFICE VISIBILITY NEIGHBOURHOOD POLICEMAN EFFECTIVENESS Lightning conductor effect! Burn Out Syndrome! Massimo Bricocoli, Police Academy of Catalunia, november 9 th 2001 p. 11

12 DEMAND of PROXIMITY Closer interaction between institutions and citizens DIRECT LISTENING AND COMMUNICATING POLICE WORK NEIGHBOURHOOD POLICEMAN SOCIAL WORK PARADOX Social workers seldom do outreach and real street work while policemen traditionally work in the streets!!! DILEMMA Involvement & Detachment!!! Massimo Bricocoli, Police Academy of Catalunia, november 9 th 2001 p. 12

13 SIMPLE or FIRST LEVEL OF COMPLEXITY ISSUES AREA BASED APPROACH STREET WORK COMPLEX ISSUES GOING BY THE BOOK ATTITUDE NEIGHBOURHOOD POLICEMAN integrated URBAN RENEWAL PROBLEM ORIENTED APPROACH CERTAINITY CONSEQUENTIALITY, FIXED HIERARCHY SECTORAL/VERTICAL ORGANISATION FIXED COMPETENCES ORGANISATIONAL&CULTURAL CHANGE CONFLICT BETWEEN ATTITUDES, OPERATIONAL TRADITIONS, DISCIPLINES, KNOW HOWS! Massimo Bricocoli, Police Academy of Catalunia, november 9 th 2001 p. 13