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New Media and Crime Prevention

On the upside of technological advances, new media has promoted innovative ways to prevent crime and help prosecution. The impact of new media in involving citizens in crime prevention, making them proactive agents effecting change in their communities, has been significant.

Public safety is one of the main concerns of every government, and when the state’s capacity is surpassed by violence and crime, the voice of the citizen plays a key role in maintaining security. Alerta Miraflores is a good example of what new media can do for public safety.

The spread of new media to public safety

In 2001 Voxiva, a communications company leader in mobile centric information solutions, launched a platform called CitizenAlert. This platform allows citizens to report crimes, emergencies and other incidents via phone or web. The reports are displayed in real-time on the web and monitored in a municipal command center. Authorized usersare allowed to see the action taken in each incident reported, ensuring accountability and transparency. As police are dispatched, their responses and feedback from citizens are tracked through the system.

In the 1990’s, Miraflores, a municipality outside Lima, Peru, experienced escalating crime (e.g., robbery, assault, and drug possession). Moreover, over 70 percent of citizens in the Lima metropolitan area ranked crime as the city’s biggest problem. The deterioration of the quality of life threatened to hinder tourism and economic activities.

In 2002 the Mayor wanted to replace the existing inefficient paper-based system with a new management system that would allow the authorities to respond quickly to reported crime and that would engage citizens in security. The municipality began collaborating with Voxiva, and in 2003 Alerta Miraflores was launched.

Alerta Miraflores: citizen participation for crime prevention

This new approach to managing crime using web and phone-based technologies provided citizens an instrument to report incidents to local authorities. Citizens dial in and are connected to an automated system to report the incident. The data provided by the citizens is captured electronically and displayed on maps to let public safety officials pinpoint the areas from which citizens are calling, to define priorities and to dispatch the closest officers. At the same time, the system is more transparent, thereby encouraging greater citizen participation.

All incidents reported – by citizens and municipal police operators – are captured in a database and logged into the CitizenNet, an internet and interactive voice response-based system (See image below from Voxiva: Case Studies).

The system has benefited the community in several ways:

• It has generated an efficient allocation of police officers (Non emergency calls are triaged)
• It is being used to identify problem areas and trends on a "crime map", enabling trend analysis and adjusting strategic plans accordingly.
• By having a public database of the incidents reported and the actions taken, the system greatly increases transparency and accountability.
• The establishment of a Command Center. The Center functions as a Citizen Security Data Center with a rich data set for analysis, decision-making, and monitoring of trends and results.
• It has created a sense of ownership for the community of the process of achieving results.
• It is a simple and effective problem-solving tool.

By 2006, 133,000 reports have been registered in Alerta Miraflores since 2003 and 47% of them came from citizens. By improving its ability to respond quickly and capturing detailed information, the authorities are better able to prevent crime. Since 2003 a 68% drop on robberies was registered and a 30% reduction in crime.

Critics say that the system has two major limitations: ensure accurate information and accessibility to new media to report the incident. Thus far, 98% of the reports logged have been confirmed incidents and a toll free number has been put in place to ensure people have access to the report system.

The first step in the ladder

Miraflores’ successful experience is being already replicated in two municipalities in Argentina and it is being shared in Latin America via the network: “Digital Cities/ Safe Communities,” established by Voxiva and Microsoft to promote citizen security and services.

Similar projects have been put in place in cities like Mexico City or New Orleans, where crime rates are increasing dramatically. In Mexico, the newspaper Reforma launched a pilot project of an online map of the city, where citizens can tag the place where they’ve been victims of a crime. The same thing was done in New Orleans by a civil society asociation. This open source crime- mapping warns other citizens about the most dangerous areas of the city and works as an alert system for the community.

Cell phones and websites are proving to be much more efficient, easy and cost-effective way to report crime than the traditional paper-based method at police stations. At the same time, it is encouraging citizen involvement and participation in policy making by providing the local police with more data.

The spread of new media into public safety is the first step toward changing the way public policy is made and encouraging a citizen-based approach, where new media enables citizens to impact change as proactive agents.


Notes:
Images from Voxiva: Case Studies

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