ICPC in FocusTool for Municipalities in Canada
The Key to Safer Municipalities was designed for Canadian municipalities and is intended first and foremost for elected members of city governments, as well as municipal managers.
Through the use of this toolkit, municipalities will learn how to:
- mobilize their partners and identify the role that each can and must play;
- develop a better understanding of the nature and causes of the crime and insecurity they face;
- develop policies on public safety and define their needs;
- make more enlightened decisions as to what actions should be undertaken, and measure their impact;
- demonstrate their leadership and make full use of municipal services; and
make public safety a collective endeavour including the active participation of their citizens.
Available in: English, French
For information on how to obtain a copy of the CD rom, contact ICPC at:
cipc@crime-prevention-intl.org
Events on the theme of security-Quebec
Last May, two events were organized in Quebec on the theme of security. The Société de criminologie du Québec organized its 32nd biannual Congress on the following theme: «Towards a safety-based society? Issues and impacts on practice» (25, 26 and 27 May). The event was introduced as follows:
« Bearing in mind the transformations in penal policy and practice in recent years -including, among other things, the law and policies relating to young offenders, new penal measures such as conditional sentencing, court practices, police practices, parole conditions, changes in prevention, the place of victims in penal practice- and the increasing attention given to some forms of crime such as sexual offences and family violence at a time when new forms of crime are emerging, the Congress examined these transformations within the framework of more general and profound political changes affecting the role of the State, relations between social groups, and the distribution of resources. Following this overview, the Congress highlighted the growing sensitization to risks of all kinds, and underscored the increase in insecurity, and the fact that security has become a major issue for peoples».
Participants were invited to discuss the following issues:
• Exchanges related to policies and penal practices in the context of
a changing society.
• What is the significance of these new practices?
• What are their objectives, working methods, and limitations?
• Do they contribute to enhancing safety and protecting citizens?
• What is their impact on rights and freedoms, solidarity and social justice?
A number of thematic workshops were organized on these issues. ICPC was represented by Daniel SANSFAÇON who gave a workshop on «Citizen participation in urban safety: how and why? and Serges BRUNEAU who chaired the workshop on «Communication strategies in the correctional field».
For more information, see the Internet site : www.societecrimino.qc.ca
From May 31st until June 2nd 2005, the École nationale de police du Québec hosted the international 1st Colloquium for French-speaking countries on Police and Citizens (Nicolet, Quebec).This Colloquium was introduced as follows:
«In modern societies, the demand for security is a major preoccupation for citizens. In the course of the 20th century, the Welfare State has played an increasing role in the production of goods and services in response to this demand. On the other hand, it has been constrained to involve other actors in this monopoly. There is one area of public action where redefining relations between citizens and government institutions raises a number of fundamental issues which have not been resolved: protecting people and their goods against crime».
For their part, police services have undertaken major reforms in order to strengthen their links with citizens which had become fragile. Community policing strategies, neighbourhood policing in Europe, or problem-oriented policing, have all sought to make citizens the co-producers of their own safety. Some ethnic minorities have also been the target of initiatives aimed at facilitating their relations with the police. The notion of partnership involving a wide array of government, private and community actors plays a key role in this process. However, despite the numerous experiences and reforms undertaken in Canada, Europe or the United States, empirical knowledge and theory focusing on this new type of relationship police-citizens are still rare or limited, and poorly exchanged between researchers and practitioners».
The purpose of the Colloquium was to overcome these problems:
- Launch a debate on the social, political, theoretical and normative issues stemming from problematic relations between organizations operating in the area of crime prevention and citizens.
- Examine the experiments and reforms which have already taken place worldwide in the area of democratic reconciliation between political institutions and citizens, in order to evaluate their success and failure, in the light of this debate;
-Encourage the development of public safety policies and tools related to the implementation of these policies which are likely to improve the quality, access to and transparency of the services offered to citizens by the police, and enhance citizens’ participation in the definition and implementation of these policies;
- Promote the establishment of an international network of researchers, police-practitioners and representatives concerned with these questions of consultation and partnership with citizens.
The Colloquium was also an opportunity to assess the evolution of relations between police and citizens in Quebec and elsewhere, and to view the past experience of community policing in Quebec.
ICPC participated as a member of the Scientific Committee (Serges BRUNEAU) responsible for the eventual production of a book on the Colloquium, and gave a Workshop on the Cities Exchange Programme — Montreal, Liège and Bordeaux, together with Ms Sophie NEUFORGE (Liège, Belgium), and Mr Érik SANTANA (Montreal, Canada).
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