Trees and crime in urban areas: recommendations (original) (raw)
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Trees and Crime in Bogota, Colombia: Is the link an ecosystem disservice or service
2018
There is a perception that increased forest cover and density in urban contexts is associated with increased criminality. But, this complex relationship between urban vegetation, crime, ecosystem services (ES) and dis-services (ED), has been little studied in low and middle income countries. This study's aim was to statistically determine if specific structural and socioeconomic characteristics of urban treescapes were related to crime occurrence, considered an ED, in a major Latin American city. We used spatial and statistical analyses of a public tree inventory, homicide occurrence, and available geospatial data to analyze if urban treescape, demographic, and socioeconomic variables were related to the incidence of homicides in Neotropical Bogota, Colombia. First, a generalized linear model indicated that fewer homicides occurred in public treescapes with taller trees and higher tree density. In contrast, the amount of overall green space and average tree basal area were not significant predictors of homicide occurrence. Second, a geographically weighted regression model indicated that the inclusion of tree basal area rendered tree height insignificant, and that higher basal areas were associated with fewer homicides. Thus, both models indicated that increased tree density and size were actually associated with lower homicide occurrences. The amount of public green areas was however, not significantly related to homicide occurrence. Results indicate that in general, Bogota´s treescapes provided overall net ES as opposed to ED in terms of crime. Findings could be used to develop land use policies and management practices that increase the overall provision and demand for ES from urban forests.
Chapter 4 Do green areas affect crime and safety
In: Crime and fear in public places, 2020
The aim of this chapter is to identify and assess the nature of published, peer-reviewed literature in English on the relationship between green areas (parks, forests, neighborhood parks, green vacant land, interstitial spaces) and crime and perceived safety. This goal is achieved by performing a systematic literature overview from 1968 to 2018 from the major databases and respond to the following questions: (1) Which are the most common types of the green areas associated with crime and/or poor perceived safety in the international literature? (2) Do green areas affect the occurrence of crime and disorder, and if so, how? (3) Do green areas impact on perceived safety and, if so, what are the mechanisms? The chapters concludes with a discussion of policy and research recommendations.
Surveying the Role of Vegetation in Rise of Crime in Urban Spaces
Nowadays, urban design knowledge has been interwoven with several keywords such as Crime Hotspots, Defenseless spaces, Crime prevention, etc. Green spaces are one of the factors in creating urban defenseless spaces. Studies show that pathology of environmental factors, simplify the commitment of crime, with supporting physical security & disciplinary in such places can prevent of public harshness. This article studies urban vegetation of Tehran (capital metropolis of the country) & Qazvin (which labeled as a secured city of Iran) in two different plane/scale of Urban Spaces. The result of studies indicates that green spaces can led to create a defenseless spaces. So it should be provide appropriate solutions for urban landscape design Crime Prevention through Environmental Design can just reduce rate of crimes in a special places such as residential zone which need to be a safe place & never eradicates crimes.
Everybody Loves Trees: Policing American Cities Through Street Trees
Recently, municipalities have been investing large sums of money as well as much bureaucratic and professional effort into making their cities not only a more treefull place, but also a place that surveys, measures, regulates, and manages its trees. This article explores the transformation of the utilitarian discourse on trees, which focuses on the benefits of trees and greenery, into a normative discourse whereby trees are not only considered good but are also represented as if they are or should be loved by everybody. This transformation is not only the result of top-down governmental policies. It is also a consequence of longstanding romantic views of nature in the city - especially in the American city - facilitated by environmental organizations, local communities, and individual activists. Importantly, the attribution of morality to tree practices masks the clandestine project of governing the urban population and the control of city crime in particular.
Landscape Online
Urban parks and forests are important for wellbeing, but feelings of unsafety limited their usage. Removal of vegetation from hotspots of fear is sometimes recommended as a means of boosting safety. However such actions should be approached with caution. One explanation, based on prospect-refuge theory, is that plants increase perceptions of danger because of their contribution to a setting’s effectiveness in concealing criminals. It is also believed that people do not like urban green spaces parks containing trees and shrubs that can act as hiding places because of the sense of danger that this vegetation evokes. To test this explanation, participants rated 57 photos of urban parks and forest parks settings park settings on perceived danger, effectiveness of concealment, and landscape preference. In addition, the effectiveness of concealment in the photos was measured assuming that the value of this variable is expressed by the percentage of the pixels occupied by trees and shrubs ...
The association between urban tree cover and gun assault: a case-control and casecrossover study
American journal of epidemiology, 2017
Green space and vegetation may play a protective role for urban violence. We investigated whether being near urban tree cover during outdoor activities related to being assaulted with a gun. We conducted GIS-assisted interviews with 10- to 24-year old males in Philadelphia, PA including 135 patients who had been shot with a firearm and 274 community controls, between 2008-2011. Each subject reported a step-by-step mapped account of where and with whom they travelled over a full day from waking until being assaulted or going to bed. Geocoded path points were overlaid on mapped layers representing tree locations and place-specific characteristics. Conditional logistic regressions compared case subjects versus controls (case-control) and case subjects at the time of injury versus times earlier that day (case-crossover). When comparing cases at the time of assault to controls matched at the same time of day, being under tree cover was inversely associated with gunshot assault (OR = 0.70...