fourteen - Feelings of insecurity and young people in housing estates

Summary

Introduction

Many residents on large housing estates experience feelings of insecurity. Some of the estates have serious problems involving juvenile crime, while on other estates youngsters just hanging around cause feelings of insecurity. Residents and officials label such behaviour as deviant, and apply different types of measures to attempt to decrease the level of insecurity that it causes in a neighbourhood. The solutions to these problems can be divided into environmental (or physical), socialisation, and criminalisation strategies. In this chapter we discuss examples of criminalisation and socialisation strategies in France, the Netherlands, and Poland. The advantages and disadvantages of both strategies are described; by comparing examples from different countries, we assess which are the most successful in dealing with feelings of insecurity. We have taken our examples from three different countries: the Netherlands, where very explicit links are made between young immigrants and feelings of insecurity; France, where this link is also explicit, but where officials are reluctant to discuss it for ideological and political reasons; and Poland, where immigration is not a major issue, but where similar links are made between the presence of young people in public spaces and feelings of insecurity. The issue at stake is not just a problem in these three countries, however: it is also recognised elsewhere. In her widely cited study of housing estates in Europe, Power (1997) noted that issues of insecurity and violence among disaffected youth had become a common problem. In several of the RESTATE reports, similar points are raised. In Italy, for example:

Minor delinquent behaviour such as painting graffiti or breaking windows is common. … Young people do not have many attractions here or places to meet, so they gather in the streets. Their behaviour concerns the rest of the inhabitants, who have no contact with young people and do not connect with their anxieties and needs, but feel that tension between the generations is growing (Mezzetti et al, 2003, p 47).

In Slovenia, ‘the youngsters have taken over the space and the elderly residents complain about their boisterous activities’ that discourage other residents ‘from moving freely in the neighbourhood during the evening hours’ (Černič Mali et al, 2003, pp 43 and 52), while in Germany ‘often young people in the street, especially those from ethnic minorities, are seen as a danger in public space and to be avoided’ (Droste and Knorr-Siedow, 2004, p 47).