Engendering crime prevention: international developments and the Canadian experience.

• Author: Shaw, Margaret
• Position: Includes text in French

Cet article traite de l'absence d'une approche sexospecifique en matiere de prevention du crime au Canada et a l'etranger. Les auteurs font valoir la necessite d'integrer dans une demarche sexospecifique les initiatives axees respectivement sur la violence a l'endroit des femmes et la protection des femmes, particulierement au niveau des municipalites. Ils invoquent le travail accompli pour la protection des femmes et le renforcement du role des femmes dans la prise de decision au palier du gouvernement local. Dans la premiere partie de l'article, ils passent en revue les politiques et pratiques en vigueur dans le monde en matiere de protection des femmes, les nouveautes et dernieres tendances enregistrees en la matiere, ainsi que certains des problemes et des questions qui se posent--champs d'expertise et d'activite separes qui semblent s'etre developpes sur les themes respectifs de la violence a l'endroit des femmes et de la protection des femmes; emergence de la perspective sexospecifique, isolation de ces domaines d'activite de la prevention du crime en general. Dans la seconde partie de l'article, les auteurs evaluent les realisations canadiennes en matiere d'integration de la perspective sexospecifique dans la prevention du crime et formulent des recommandations en ce sens, particulierement au palier local.

Introduction

This article is concerned with the relative absence of gender in crime prevention in Canada and internationally. It considers the development of work on women's safety and violence against women, and the emergence of the concept of gender, and argues that there is a need to integrate them into a concerted, gendered approach. Such an approach should be supported at national and regional levels but is particularly important at the level of municipalities. The article draws on developing work on women's safety, gender, and the role of women in decision making, especially in local government.

The first part of the article reviews international policy and practice on women's safety. It discusses not only some of the trends and developments, but also the problems and questions raised in the course of the review. These relate to the apparently separate worlds of expertise and activity that have grown up around violence against women and women's safety, the lack of understanding of the concept of gender, and the isolation of both areas of work from mainstream crime prevention. The second part evaluates Canadian successes and weaknesses in engendering crime prevention and formulates some priorities for future action that will help to embed and sustain engendered practice, particularly at the local level.

International trends

As part of its work on women's safety, gender, and crime prevention, the International Centre for the Prevention of Crime (ICPC) has undertaken a review of international policy and practice (Shaw and Capobianco 2004). (1) The review, published as Developing Trust: International Approaches to Women's Safety, highlighted the separation of work relating to the safety of women from violence but, more importantly, the absence of discourse or research that touches on gender and crime prevention. It became clear that in order to develop a more comprehensive preventive approach to promote the safety of women in all societies, we need to take a much broader view of violence against women, women's safety, gender, and crime prevention.

Problems of understanding and definition

The starting point for this work was a request from Canada's National Crime Prevention Centre (NCPC) to look at what was happening internationally in relation to the prevention of violence against women. Compared with some countries, a considerable amount of policy and research on violence against women had been produced in Canada up to 2000; the most recent examples included Violence Prevention and the Girl Child (Status of Women Canada 1999a) and a Policy Framework for Addressing Personal Security Issues Concerning Women and Girls (Canada, NCPC 2000). Women and girls formed one of the four target groups for the National Crime Prevention Strategy (NCPS), established in 1998. The position outlined in the 2000 NCPC policy framework paper was that

* there had been significant advances in the 1990s and increased awareness and acceptance that abuse (of women) was a serious problem;

* there was better understanding of the dynamics of abuse;

* there was greater emphasis on prevention and criminal justice solutions;

* there was better understanding of gender-based analysis; and

* there was an increasing range of practices and collaborative partnerships that responded to the complex underlying problems.

The international review looked at a range of countries in Europe, North and South America, and Africa and at Australia and New Zealand, as well as international and regional organizations, forums, and NGOs. (2) This research revealed a considerable amount of activity internationally. It also showed that countries varied enormously in their definitions and understanding of violence against women, in the scale of their activities, and in which government departments were involved. One of the reasons for the disparate location of responsibilities for violence against women, and women's issues more generally, is that it is both a relatively "new" and a very complex issue, involving a range of political, economic, social, cultural, and health factors. It has been forced onto government agendas over the past 25 years, but in most countries there has been no traditional government ministerial responsibility for women's issues, and thus no common response.

There is also no common agreement on definitions. In English, for example, a wide array of terms relating to violence against women are currently in use in different countries, often leading to considerable confusion. (3) These terms are also variously used to include or exclude children, other family members, male family members, men, and boys, apart from women and girls. Many of them do not translate well into other languages.

Over the years, policy and practice on the prevention of violence against women have developed around two distinct, but linked, areas of work: (1) violence against women and (2) women's safety.

Work on violence against women (VAW) has focused primarily on violence by intimate partners. Most policies and programs have been clustered around the events themselves, the use of the criminal justice system, and victimization issues. These have largely been concerned with reacting after events (through the development of victim support, shelter provision, police protocols, training for police and judges, and programs for abusers) and with promoting public education and awareness. Stranger violence, including rape and sexual assault, and violence by acquaintances taking place outside the home have been given much less attention and are to some extent excluded from government strategies. In this context, work on violence against women outside the home has tended to be limited to advice to women to avoid dangerous behaviours and places. In the United Kingdom, for example, such government guidance suggests that individual women, rather than men or institutions, should modify their behaviour. Such a response has been strongly contested as failing to acknowledge the need for wider systemic responses to male violence against women and the culture of violence (Stanko 1996).

Work on women's safety, on the other hand, has taken a more pro-active approach to the prevention of street and stranger violence in public spaces. It is premised on an acknowledgement of the risk of violence against women in public spaces and their insecurity, and it includes a range of strategies and policies to create safer environments for women and girls. Much of the work has centred on the use of tools such as safety audits and exploratory walks to develop recommendations for situational crime prevention initiatives. These include urban planning, housing design, and transport design and scheduling. They are also used to lobby for increased local authority support for frontline services for women. There has been an emphasis on developing prevention strategies through partnerships between local grassroots organizations, communities, and municipal governments and services, thereby increasing the role of women in local decision making (Andrew 1995). Such an approach was initially developed in a few city-based initiatives in Canada, including programs in Montreal, Toronto, and Ottawa. It has been more widely adopted by such cities as Goteburg (Sweden), Melbourne (Australia), and Dar es Salaam (Tanzania). In general, however, this stream of work has not been seen as an integral part of national or local crime prevention strategies.

In addition to these two streams of work, the concept of gender and gender equality has also emerged over the past decade. The United Nations World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 called on governments to promote "gender mainstreaming"--the incorporation of gender into all areas of public policy. (4) Gender mainstreaming is also concerned with the empowerment of women in terms of their position within decision-making structures. Many countries have gradually acknowledged the inequalities experienced by women and begun to put in place new policies and strategies. "Gender-based violence" has become a more widely used term internationally.

Crime prevention, initially seen as solely a police function, has evolved and expanded considerably over the past 20 years, as the articles in this issue make clear; yet it has remained largely a gender-neutral practice. Primary responsibility usually remains with ministries of justice, or with national crime prevention bodies closely linked to ministries of justice or of the interior. While some national governments aim to work in cross-cutting or whole-of-government ways, there are not always clear links to...