• Crime and security

Crime and security

This paper examines the relationship between levels of violence and insecurity in areas undergoing rural-urban change. This is a central issue for the security and development agenda. It is associated with processes of rapid social change that are magnified in the current context of globalisation, and that lead to multiple forms of exacerbation of levels of insecurity and fear in society, particularly in poor communities. This change-violence nexus is reflected at both global and local level, and is extremely complex. It has multiple causes, manifestations and consequences, and is often highly context specific.

Four main issues emerge:

• Changing livelihoods, labour markets and natural resources: changes in global and national production systems and associated labour, which have critical implications in terms of levels of violence and insecurity. Reduced employment opportunities for individuals and communities increasingly excluded from central processes of production and circulation has exacerbated livelihood insecurity. Accompanying this, in some contexts, are different forms of violence linked to alienated, frustrated or excluded populations, particularly associated with younger men. This includes economic-related gang violence and politically motivated identity conflict, as well as gender-based intra-household violence often related to loss of self-esteem. The ‘dark’ side of global economic progress is exacerbated by opportunities actually created by the phenomenon itself; this too has implications for levels of violence. Foremost are the range of violent manifestations associated with the rise of the international drugs trade, as well as with other illegal activities, such as sex trafficking and, more recently, the trafficking of illegal immigrants. In addition, there is the violence associated with increasing inequality in access to natural resources, particularly land. While agrarian reform has been an important institutional response to rural violence that can ensue, reform itself has also provoked violent counter-reforms in some countries. Violence and conflict over land is also an urban phenomenon closely linked to both squatter invasions and forced evictions – both exacerbated by changing urban land ownership patterns and increased speculative investment, aggravated in some contexts by globalisation.
• Changing social structures and relations: two violence-related changes are particularly important.
  • the impact of migration on household structure and levels of violence. Migration is both a global and a local phenomenon, with increasing population mobility a key feature of globalisation within as well as between countries. Migration changes households as social institutions and can be both a cause and a consequence of violence and insecurity. For instance, rural-urban migration in many contexts increases the number of female-headed households. Changed residence patterns have consequences for relationships between partners, with the pressure of separation often increasing marital conflict. Migration has profound implications for children, some associated with increasing violence. In contexts where children are fostered out by migrating parents, girls in particular can be exposed to emotional and physical abuse.
  • the impact of rapid urbanisation on inter- and intra- community level violence. While rural conflict can act as a push factor for urban migration, the phenomenon can itself exacerbate violence in urban areas. Rapid urban population growth, closely associated with overcrowding, inadequate housing and basic infrastructure provision (such as of water, electricity and transport), has important violence-related consequences, particularly when it is poorly planned for (indeed rapid urban growth per se does not necessarily correlate with violence). Conflicts occur when neighbours and communities compete for scarce resources, eroding social capital and reducing participation in CBOs. Violence associated with overcrowded services (such as public transport) often reduces income-earning opportunities. insufficient state security protection, policing and judicial systems particularly affect poor people. Unable to pay for services, they are more susceptible to institutional impunity, corruption and brutality. In some regions, particularly in South Asia, a growing cause of concern is communal violence, identified as a consequence of urban inequality and competition over scarce resources. This goes beyond conflicts between neighbours or local communities, with cultural identity providing a base for contesting inequalities in housing and service provision.

• Changing political institutions: global change processes have also led to two major transformations of political institutions: weakening of the state and the rise of alternative forms of social governance. Many states are increasingly unable to exercise coherent control over territories and peoples. This has allowed for the infiltration of organised crime, facilitating the building of international criminal networks, which has obvious consequences for violence and the rule of law. At the same time, state institutions are increasingly challenged by local-level non-state forms of social governance. Informal institutions such as gangs, vigilantes and unofficial justice systems can emerge to bring order within localised ‘governance voids’. Although these often support social cohesion and provide limited mitigation of conflict, they can also generate perverse rather than productive forms of social capital and hasten social fragmentation and the onset of violence. Moreover, they are frequently volatile and can rapidly change from being productive to perverse. Such global change processes have brought about fundamental transformations of state governance. Many states are undoubtedly weaker as a result of such transformations, and many also operate along fundamentally different lines to the past. The challenge to the state’s traditional monopoly over violence (coupled with the rollback of state institutions and reduction in public expenditures) means that states increasingly seek to dominate rather than control and survey. This particularly applies to specific populations perceived as primary sources of danger and violence, such as the poor. Reduced capacity for systematic policing of slums frequently results in policies aimed at regulating them through occasional, unpredictable and violent ‘surgical strike’ raids that create climates of terror and uncertainty. This is often linked to the rise of a new type of populist ‘anti-politics’, characterised by leaders promising to ensure security through brutal means involving few democratic checks and balances. A related governance issue is the increased privatisation of security, with many state authorities all over the world now contracting private security firms to conduct public policing. This so-called ‘outsourcing’ of state sovereignty blurs the boundaries between the public and the private, and often leads to new, vicious cycles of violence.
• Changing spatial organisation: the transformation of state institutions is reflected at the local level in the rise of new forms of spatial organisation. Once again, two issues emerge as particularly important. The first is the development of new forms of socio-spatial governance, particularly in urban areas. The policing of urban order is increasingly concerned with the management of space rather than the disciplining of offenders. Urban regulatory mechanisms aim to eradicate offensive behaviour from specific places, rather than to punish offenders, thereby managing risk by anticipating problems rather than reacting to them. This is particularly reflected in the retreat of the affluent into ‘fortified enclaves’ in order to isolate themselves from high levels of crime and violence. This new form of governance produces new urban problems, as it changes notions about urban space: this is no longer seen to be about cohabitation but rather separateness. Forms of social discrimination overlay onto the new spatial order to create instances of heightened violence. Secondly, new forms of violence are also generated by the emergence of new spatial forms. Cities are privileged spaces of accelerated social transformation, constituting crucial nodes for the coordination and servicing of economies that are increasingly internationalised. There are considerable social costs associated with this change process, including a growing polarisation between successful transnational elites and an increasingly impoverished and territorially immobile majority. The development of sprawling ‘precarious peripheries’, characterised by a lack of basic services, inexistent urban infrastructure, illegality, and disconnection from the city centres where jobs and cultural and economic opportunities are concentrated, is a reflection of such emergent disparities. This ‘territorial exclusion’ has a clear relationship to violence as those on the periphery seek to reach the centre. This process is also mirrored more broadly at the level of the rural-urban nexus, the changing nature of which has made it increasingly into a fault line of conflict. Whether this entails the blurring of the urban and the rural or growing rural-urban cleavages, this has frequently translated into new patterns of violence.

[adapted from author]

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