SMVP projects
Active citizenship
One of the main goals of the SMVP is to encourage active citizenship in the area of public safety and security. We do this through our long-term project for ‘social self-empowerment’. At the heart of that lies the notion that active citizens can do much to influence their own safety and security situation in a positive way. For many years the government and its institutions, the police very much included, have claimed responsibility for maintaining public safety in the Netherlands. Ordinary people were expected to confine themselves to taking preventive measures, such as fitting effective locks on their doors, and to supporting the government by reporting incidents, lodging charges when victim of a crime, and so on. But individuals were not expected to do any more than just that.
In recent years the picture has changed. The government has realised that it is not in a position to guarantee public safety alone. That is the responsibility of us all. Fighting nuisance, lack of security and even a lot of actual crime is not just a job for the police and the criminal justice system - everyone has a role to play in it. Many of the problems which lead to crime and a public sense of insecurity are rooted in the community. They are caused by fellow citizens who, if their behaviour is not challenged, will feel that they can get away with more and more. Because the government has for so long claimed responsibility in these matters, many ordinary people have come to feel that they need not do anything, that they should simply wait quietly until somebody else solves the problems for them. After all, isn’t that what they pay taxes for?
The Society, Security and Police Foundation is convinced that this approach does not lead to results in the long term. We believe that public safety and security in the Netherlands can only improve if everybody involved works together. The police cannot meet all expectations, social workers cannot solve every problem and government policy inevitably has only a limited effect. But there is a lot that active citizens can do to tackle their own sense of insecurity.
This is why the Foundation launched a project on the theme of ‘social self empowerment’ in the late 1980s. its objective is to enhance the active citizen's ability to find solutions for situations which they regard as threatening. By, for example, learning to deal with potentially dangerous situations, calming disputes before they escalate, reducing graffiti by challenging the perpetrators, setting up meeting places for young people, resolving conflicts between groups in the community, working together to seal off pathways and access routes regarded to be unsafe or inviting to criminals, preventing rubbish dumping and neglect, and so on. Questions are addressed, too. What should I do if I am threatened? How do I deal with my feelings of insecurity? How can I make someone who is causing a nuisance change their ways? And so forth. All these are matters which active citizens can take up themselves, as long as they have the necessary self-confidence and social skills. And that requires a certain degree of ‘self-empowerment’. Of course, there have always been people who made a stand, but all too many had learned not to. In most cases, the issue is self-protection. But there is a lot more to ‘social self-empowerment’ than just that. Self-empowerment is about encouraging a sense of community, a sense of solidarity, and about overcoming differences. In short, about making active citizens aware of the fact that they themselves can influence the quality of their lives in a positive war. Solutions developed ‘in the field’ always work better than those imposed from above. Social self-empowerment is not a call to form vigilante groups, buy baseball bats or anything like that. It is about taking a social approach to problems, always based upon the assumption that public safety and security is not enforced by big words directed to the government but by small actions from us all.
So does this mean that the SMVP no longer sees any role for government and its institutions, the police in particular? No! Quite the opposite, in fact. The police must offer more support where it is needed. For example, when people are unable to solve the problems on their own or when it is simply too dangerous to try. The government and private organisations must work together with the public to improve the approach to safety and security issues. And the police, of course, remains the only organisation with the authority to use force and to pursue criminal prosecutions. The government, however, should not regard itself as the all-powerful problem-solver but as the backer of ordinary people’s own power.
Active citizenship, in the sense of social self-empowerment, has a number of consequences for society.
1. Social self-empowerment leads to the recognition that the environment can be influenced and managed, and hence reduces feelings of insecurity. After all, these feelings are
primarily caused by the sense that problems are unmanageable.
2. Solutions devised and put into practice by active citizens themselves are more durable than those imposed by the government. Social self-empowerment leads to a lasting
improvement in actual safety and security.
3. Contributing to solutions is satisfying in itself. Nothing encourages people more than success. And that leads to an expansion of activities. Active citizenship is a process of growth towards safety and security.
Social self-empowerment raises a lot of questions. How exactly do you achieve results? What would work and what would not? What are the boundaries of people’s own abilities? How can people work together to achieve a good living environment in which safety and security are assured? How can people be provided with the knowledge and power to improve their own safety and security, and how to ensure that the government supports this development? How can new problems be prevented from arising or situations be prevented from running out of control because of people taking the law into their own hands? In other words, how can be assured that we are dealing with social self-empowerment?
Stimulating social self-empowerment is not an easy task. There are many reasons why people may resist it: lack of courage, lack of knowledge or denial of individual responsibility (‘That’s what I pay taxes for’). But the government and other institutions also have difficulty accepting it, accustomed as they are to thinking that ‘this is for us to solve’. They effectively ‘appropriate’ the problems, but ultimately without making much of a contribution towards solving them.
From the outset, the SMVP has applied a number of basic strategic principles in its approach. First of all, we have to prevent people from expecting too much of the idea too quickly. It is well known that many new terms and approaches are embraced enthusiastically, only to be ‘hugged to death’. People are at first easily attracted to ideas of this type, but if they do not lead to results straight away they are dropped just the same. The concept must therefore be introduced carefully, step by step, and repeatedly tested in practice. External communications are a vital tool throughout the process.
Secondly, a term like social self-empowerment can easily be used by the government as an excuse to cut public spending, or as an argument for the police to ignore appeals for help from the public (‘Sorry, madam, we don’t come out for this kind of thing any more. We call it selfempowerment...’). That must not happen! Social self-empowerment is a voyage of discovery, a learning curve for all concerned. In the beginning it is even likely to create more work for the police and other professionals, such as social services.
Thirdly, right from our initial contacts it became clear that encouraging social selfempowerment requires a very fundamental change in the attitude of governmental and other organisations. One which they find difficult to carry through. Much of the effort in the project is therefore devoted to facilitating the change of role implicit in social self-empowerment, from ‘problem-solver’ to ‘backer’.
We began the project by developing ideas. These were then crystallised before being released into the public domain. We made sure that it was always possible to adjust those ideas in line with the issues regarded as important by society. How this has shaped the approach of the SMVP to its project is set out below, point by point.
Approach
1. Initial concept development
What exactly is social self-empowerment? How far can and should the individual citizen go? Where are the boundaries? How, in other words, does social self-empowerment relate legally to notions like justified self-defence and excessive use of force? Are there practical examples which might be instructive to others? How can the term be further defined and substantiated? Such questions were addressed in the first book to be published in the SMVP series, in 1990, entitled Naar een nieuwe balans van verantwoordelijkheden (‘Towards a New Balance of Responsibilities’). This book also described a number of potential projects designed to begin practical work in the field. The ideas were further elaborated in the extensive 1993 SMVP publication Op eigen kracht onveiligheid de baas (‘Beating Insecurity Yourself’).
2. Experimental Local Support Teams (LOTs)
In order to test the practical feasibility of the ideas developed, in late 1994 a two-year experiment in partnership with the National Centre for Community Work was initiated in seven Dutch towns and cities: Arnhem, Delft, Deventer, Emmen, Leiden, Rotterdam en Zwolle. In each of these communities a neighbourhood was selected and a team of two people - a police officer and a community worker - appointed to encourage local people to tackle safety and security issues to the best of their own ability. Depending upon the situation, this Local Support Team (LOT) could act in any of a number of capacities: stimulating, directing or supporting. By means of its approach, this experiment also tested the concept of integrated safety and security. It was evaluated at the end of 1996. The main conclusion was that all seven local authorities with LOTs in their area wished to extend the approach to other neighbourhoods. This was effectively started in September 1997. At the same time a new subproject designed to introduce more innovation was started. The theme chosen for this was conflict resolution through mediation. It built on the knowledge and experience already acquired by the existing LOTs.
The LOT experiences were published in the 1999 book Veilig in de wijk: sociale zelfredzaamheid in de praktijk (‘Safety in the Neighbourhood: Social Self-Empowerment in Practice’). This examines the approach to improving local quality of life, safety and security based upon social self-empowerment through active citizenship on the part of residents. Above all, this book serves as a practical guide. How can residents themselves play a leading role in improving their own safety, security and quality of life? The publication addresses the practice, effects, organisational repercussions, pitfalls and dangers of social selfempowerment. Also examined are the place of this strategy in today’s integrated public safety and security policy, as well as the background to insecurity and public consultation processes. The book is intended for a range of specialists working in the community: police officers, local-authority officials, judicial officials and social workers.
3. Advice and support
With the release of out ideas into the public domain, the number of requests we received for advice and support increased. These come mainly from residents’ associations, local crimeprevention organisations, neighbourhood watch schemes and the like. To cater for their needs, we compiled a handbook on social self-empowerment aimed at a general readership. This is entitled Van Onder Op - Werkboek methodiek sociale zelfredzaamheid (‘From the Bottom Up: a Practical Guide to Social Self-Empowerment’).
In 1999 we set up a sister foundation, Foundation SMVP Productions (Stichting SMVP Producties). This foundation makes the knowledge gathered by the SMVP available to third parties. It was established in response to the huge demand for our involvement in projects in the field. In the past we often had to turn down such requests. Now they can be honoured, albeit to a modest extent.
4. Research
It is extremely important that we continue to critically examine the social significance of the ideas we have developed and that we closely investigate how our encouragement of social self-empowerment works out in practice. To this end, four social-scientific research projects have been conducted.
- Based upon a number of case studies, we investigated how social self-empowerment evolves in practice. Entitled Zelf doen en overlaten (‘Doing it Yourself and Leaving it to
Others’), the report on this research was published in 1993.
- An evaluation of the Local Support Team pilot project in seven communities was carried out by the Verweij-Jonker Institute in Utrecht. Its report was published in February 1996,
under the title De impuls van sociale zelfredzaamheid (‘The Stimulus of Social Self- Empowerment’).
- A study of the consequences of opening and closing down police stations for perceived security and local residents' social self-empowerment. This theme is particularly relevant
because of the rate at which police stations have been shut down in recent years, and the social unease this has caused. The results of the research are contained in the 1996 SMVP
publication Politie en sociale zelfredzaamheid van burgers (‘The Police and Public Social Self-Empowerment’).
- The so-called Zwolle Community Innovation Team (BITZ) is active in the Indische Buurt neighbourhood in the town of Zwolle. Since it relies very much upon residents’ own
ability to change their environment, the BITZ is applying the principles of social selfempowerment. At the SMVP’s request, Dr Joyce Hes examined how things are carried
out in the Indische Buurt and how the ‘bottom-up’ principle works there.
Some other projects in brief
Prosperity improves safety and security
This was the theme of a congress co-organised by the SMVP and held in Amersfoort on 29 November 2002. The proceedings of the event were published in 2003. As well as all the introductory addresses and presentations on local projects, the publication includes a number of background essays that were especially written for it. All these contributions address the issue of how government, the police, social institutions and residents can collectively improve
the safety of the living environment.
The predicament of permissiveness
It is assumed that lax enforcement of the law puts pressure upon citizens who do not adopt the same attitude. Somebody who sees a government not bothering to observe its own rules and not seriously enforcing the law will be less likely to modify their own behaviour. What are the effects of official permissiveness upon individual citizens’ readiness to observe the rules? To what extent is it possible to enforce legal standards more strictly, and would this be a sensible strategy?
A picture of safety and security
The Foundation regularly produces summaries of current themes in public safety and security. This more or less continuous process is based upon secondary analysis of books and reports.
The police and the military
Despite their differences, contacts between the police and the armed forces are increasing in a variety of fields. The SMVP has conducted a thorough assessment of these areas of contact. Based upon the assessment, possible future scenarios can be formulated. These should include situations involving international peacekeeping operations.
Safety on the railways
The result of the first phase of this project was an SMVP report on the strengths and weaknesses in the current relationship between all those involved in this issue. Proposals to improve co-operation were also made. Safety on the railways is not the responsibility of Dutch Railways alone - it is also an issue for national and local government, the transport police, regional police forces, the judiciary, passengers and station businesses. This project resulted in a report, Terug op het voetstuk (‘Back on the Pedestal’) and an executive opinion, Veiligheid in treinen en op en rond stations (‘Safety on Trains and in and around Stations’).
Police authority
Many people claim that the authority of the police is waning. This is attributed to supposed social phenomena such as a declining sense of standards and less readiness to accept authority, as well as increasing levels of aggression and - often unprovoked - violence. Is the authority of the police as a whole waning, or is this a problem mainly associated with certain types of police work?
The social function of the police
The SMVP considers it one of its main tasks to hold up a critical mirror to the police if things are not going as they should. Amongst other things, this has resulted in a critical analysis of police performance. In particular, we have looked at why the police force has encountered problems in recent years.
Elected mayors
In 1999 an SMVP project group compiled a report on the consequences for the police of proposals to introduce a system of elected, rather than appointed, mayors in the Netherlands.
Special constables
The SMVP has published an opinion document in which it calls for more extensive use of
voluntary special constables by the police.
Public-private partnerships in crime detection
The Foundation has been approached by various parties with requests to examine recent
developments in the relationship between government and the private sector with regard to crime detection. A wide range of problems occur here. They include, for example, the mutual use of the information gathered by the different partners in their work and the co-ordination of
activities, particularly in terms of prioritisation.
Security, insurance and the police
The first phase of this project focused upon the exchange of information between insurers, the
police and the judiciary. A publication in 1997 emphasised the need for true co-operation between these three parties in tackling burglaries.
Financial integrity
The SMVP has been active in this field for many years. We have conducted research into how money is laundered in the Netherlands and into involvement of the stock-exchange in the flow of criminal funds.
Special investigation agencies
At the request of the Department of Home Affairs, the SMVP has provided advice on an approach to the issue of how special investigation services are organised. We have also prepared a preliminary report on this subject.
Corruption and fraud
In 1992 the SMVP organised the fifth International Anti-Corruption Conference in Amsterdam. That was the first time that this major biennial event was held in the Netherlands. It made a major contribution to the public debate on the issue. Since then we have been involved in organising the conferences in Mexico, China, Peru and South Africa. The SMVP has collected important ‘learning moments’ from the Amsterdam conference and disseminated them through a series of useful publications.
Future developments in safety and security
Late in 1991 the SMVP published a forecast of future developments in the public safety and
security situation and likely trends in the approach to it. We have remained actively involved in forecasting ever since. Recently, for example, we investigated the possible repercussions of internet ‘cybercash’ on the nature and scope of crime. We are currently working on a project to identify the social consequences of bank and credit cards.
SMVP Publications Award
The SMVP’s biennial award for publications on safety and security in the context of government and society has achieved considerable renown in the academic world. The winner is chosen by an independent panel of judges.