Perception of Criminal Insecurity in Vulnerable Districts in Latin America

Macarena Rau,Thimothy Pascoe,Iván Cartes,Francisco Gatica,Víctor Carrasco

doi:10.11648/j.urp.20190404.11

Abstract

Latin America, the world's most criminogenic region from the perspective of intentional homicide, is also the region with the highest perception of criminal insecurity. This situation negatively affects the quality of life of its inhabitants, influencing their decisions on the use of certain public spaces or the possibility of avoiding them due to the fear of being victims of a crime. This comparative analysis of three cases of intervention through situational prevention strategies and Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design at the residential level, both in Chile and Honduras, seeks to establish the existence of a relationship between the socio-spatial modification of the environment and the impact generated from the implementation of these strategies in the levels of victimization, on the perception of insecurity and on the degree of social cohesion of the communities with which we work directly. To achieve this objective, a section was first developed with the main theoretical backgrounds related to Urban Security and the methodological proposal to measure the impact generated by situational prevention strategies and CPTED on intervened areas of the countries already mentioned. Then, the methodology used in this research is presented, which consists of three case studies with similar characteristics to each other, where each of these areas will also have their respective control group. It also includes the information collection techniques used, the design of the samples and the type of research to which this study corresponds. The analysis of the data allowed progress towards preliminary results, which are obtained mainly through the use of descriptive statistics, that is, by crossing variables relevant to the objectives of the research. While for the elaboration of conclusive results, inferential statistics were used through "chi-square", which led to the generation of statistically significant associations between variables, thus allowing evidence to be available impact generated by situational prevention methods and CPTED on the urban safety of the localities involved in both Chile and Honduras.

Highlights

Urban security has become a high priority on the public agenda of Latin American countries over the past decade, especially with regard to the increase in violent crime [1]
Since the beginning of this investigation, several results have been identified, one of which is related to the fact that the installation of luminaires in the Pedro Aguirre Cerda area, in the commune of Puente Alto, reduced the fear of the community and, the living conditions of the inhabitants of the territory improved, since in turn they improved the levels of confidence that exists among the neighbors, as expressed in the following hypothesis test: Through the "chi square" hypothesis test for ordinal and/or nominal variables, it is possible to establish that there is statistically significant evidence. 0.011 to reject the null hypothesis and to assert that there is an association between "the installation of public luminaires" and "the level of trust between neighbors"
Based on the evidence obtained, it can be noted that the methodologies of Situational Prevention and CPTED have an impact on the reduction of crimes of greater social connotation, including theft and homicides

Summary

Introduction

Urban security has become a high priority on the public agenda of Latin American countries over the past decade, especially with regard to the increase in violent crime [1]. Crime prevention aims to reduce the environmental and social risk factors that cause criminal behavior and promote factors that protect against participation in antisocial or criminal activities, before they manifest behaviors. It tends to be confused with social policies in general, crime prevention is distinguished from them because it is not universally applied, but interventions and actions focus on groups of people and territories that are vulnerable to Crime. The homicide rate is the most widely used international indicator for comparing crime levels in several countries around the world. The homicide rate in LAC is four times higher than the international average

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion