Evaluation of the Safe City Strategy in Central Sydney

• NCJ Number: 190291
• Author(s): Christine Coumarelos
• Date Published: 2001
• Length: 78 pages
• Corporate Author: New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research
• Sale Source: New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research; NCJRS Photocopy Services
• Publication Format: Document
• Publication Type: Program/Project Evaluation
• Language: English
• Country: Australia
• Note: General Report Series

Annotation

In early 1998, the Sydney City Council (Australia) began the implementation of a major multifaceted crime prevention strategy in the Sydney Local Government Area, entitled the "Safe City Strategy;" this paper reports on an evaluation of the effectiveness of this project, both in terms of its impact on crime and on city users' perceptions of personal safety in the area.

Abstract

The project includes the following initiatives: an upgrade of footpaths and streets; improved lighting; street surveillance cameras; an emergency video phone trial; community safety education; an accord with licensed premises; and a safe taxi initiative. Most of the initiatives were completed by mid-1999. To determine citizen reactions to the strategy in terms of feelings of safety in the area, a survey of 1,808 city users was conducted in early 2000. Interviewers were stationed across the city, both during the day and at night and during the week and on the weekend. An analysis of the strategy's impact on crime used data on recorded criminal incidents in the area. Despite the varying levels of awareness of the strategy initiatives, city users' perceived impact of the initiatives on the city's safety was positive. Without exception, each initiative was perceived by at least 62 percent of respondents as likely to make the city safer. Although the city was generally perceived as "safe" at the time of the survey and as "safer" after the implementation of the strategy compared with 1 year previously, the public's confidence in the city's safety varied according to both individual characteristics and situational factors. The pre-post analysis of the strategy's impact on crime focused on nonresidential serious assault, nonresidential common assault, nonresidential sex offenses, robbery with a weapon, robbery without a weapon, theft from a person, and malicious damage to property. The only offense that did not show a favorable impact from the strategy was nonresidential common assault. 46 tables, 24 notes, 73 references, survey questionnaire, and a map of the strategy target area