Blindspot!
From Issue: 741 [Read full issue]
Public Safety
It is street life and connected neighbours that make a neighbourhood safe. We think the Police can keep us safe. In our concern for safety, we too often defer to the professionals. Police are not the answer. They are needed for crime; they cannot produce safety.
There is in every neighbourhood structures for citizens to volunteer: Citizens on Patrol, Neighbourhood Watch, safety meetings, educational pamphlets hung on people's front doors by the police. These go under the title of crime prevention. They are a useful warning system and help us watch out for criminals, loitering, strangers hanging out in the neighbourhood, but they still function within the retributive mindset.
The shift is to realize that safety occurs through neighbourhood relatedness. The efforts that move in this direction focus on identifying neighbourhood assets. On creating occasions for citizens to know each other through clean-up campaigns, block parties, and citizen activist movements to confront irresponsible landlords, and abandoned houses and lots. Anything that helps neighbours to know who lives on the street. Every neighbourhood has certain connector people who know everyone else's going on. We need ways to recognize these people and others.
If we looked at the assets of the neighbourhood, we would realize that youth are on the streets in the afternoon, and retired people and shut-ins have the time to watch what is going on. When we recognize the gifts of these people, safety will be produced.
Compiled From:
"Community: The Structure of Belonging" - Peter Block, pp. 166, 167