Looking at crime: communities and physical spaces. A research project about crime in historic center of Porto

Abstract

When a crime occurs, even if not reported, it raises a great concern on a social level, whether because of the complexity of the phenomenon, the persistence over time, the consequences of it, or even because of the space where the crime has taken place. Official records do not take into consideration a certain amount of criminal events, mostly because of non-reported crimes, nor spaces characteristics, which results in a lack of understanding of the global phenomenon and its complexities. This project, involving a multidisciplinary team and focused on Historic Center of Porto, aims to: i) characterize criminal behaviour base on the type of crime, geographic location, and perpetrators; ii) get access to non-reported crimes; iii) identify the signs of crime, or risk of crime, in a school environment; and iv) map out the physical spaces that associate with criminal behaviour. A multisystemic approach will be applied including different contexts and different individuals – i.e., communities and their members, school staff, students and the physical places where the interaction happens. In order to look at crime in a holistic view, data from several sources – official statistical data, self-report surveys, and physical spaces observation - will be collected. In addition, we also aim to combine and integrate these data into a single database. Therefore, the project will provide a comprehensive and deep portrait of crime in Historic Center of Porto, suggesting new criminal preventive strategies that could be put into place. Detailed information about the scope, aims, methods, expected outcomes and research team will be presented in this poster.