Safety and Security

Safety and Security

Safety and security are two concepts that both indicate the level of protection against risk.

Distiction between safety and security

The distinction between safety and security lies in the type of threat that is at the source of the risk. While security concerns risk due to human intent, safety concerns all other risk. This means that whether a measure is a measure is a security measure or a safety measure, depends on the type of risk it is meant to mitigate. A reinforced window for example can be either:

• When installed to prevent harm coming to the inhabitants coming from a gas tank accidently exploding, it would be a safety measure.
• When installed to protect the inhabitants from terrorist explosions, it would be a security measure.

A measure can also serve as a security and a safety measure at the same time. An example can be found in a door: the fire-delaying properties of the door might serve as a safety measure while the fact that is locked for unauthorised entry is a security measure.

Entry points for safety and security

• Constuent elements of risk
  • likelihood
  • vulnerability
  • impact
• Sources of risk (Threats)
  • Safety threats
  • Security threats, Security issues, Crime
• Measures against risk
  • Types of measures
  • Points of application for measures
  • Safety chain
• Relevance of safety and security to the Urban Planner
• Objective and subjective risk
• Social impacts of risk

• Risk determination and risk assessment methods - Securban

Security is the degree or act of protection of persons or assets against risk stemming from the threat type human intent. The distinction between security and safety is explained in differences between safety and security.

Security in the urban environment

Security concerns harm done by persons by wilful action. As these actions are generally prohibited by law, these actions constitute crimes. Security threats can therefore be classified by crime type. Further threats to urban security are intentional threats, such as urban terrorism, organized crime and cyber attacks). Disasters, such as man made disasters (e.g. technical failure and industrial accidents), and natural hazard events (e.g. flooding, storms, earthquakes etc.) also pose security threats to urban environments.

Crime types

A uniform classification of crime that is generally accepted does not exist. In the EU, member countries are obliged to report crime statistics in their country annually. Although countries will use their own systems and classifications, they report their figures according to the classification used for these statistics which distinguishes between the following crime types:

• Homicide,
• Drug trafficking,
• Robbery,
• Motor vehicle theft,
• Domestic burglary and
• Violent crime.

An indication of the relative size of these crime types and their development through the years is given in the next figure .

Crimetype statistics in the EU

This classification does not cover all types of crime and does not contain only mutually exclusive classes (robbery is defined as a type of violent crime).

A classification that is developed for use in the urban environment that the types of crime most relevant to urban design, is based on the motivation of perpetrators:

Classification of crimetypes

The first category of criminals (thieves) is motivated by financial gain. They can be subdivided into:

• Burglars, who gain wealth by illicitly entering buildings,
• Robbers, who gain wealth by force of threat.
• Extortionists, who gain wealth by use of coercion and
• Frauds, who gain wealth by intentional deception

The second category of criminal (vandals) is motivated by amusement (such as bored youth bothering passers-by) or by compulsive behaviour (such as pyromaniacs). They can be sub divided into:

• Property vandals, who seek damage or destruction of property, and
• Person vandals, who assaults other people physically or mentally.

The third category (rioters) is motivated by impulse, often under group pressure, often in a situation with a high level of excitement or arousal. Two subtypes of rioters are:

• Protesters and
• Hooligans.

The fourth and last category is motivated by conflict in beliefs (fanatics) and tries to impose rules or beliefs upon others by use of coercion. The level of coercion can vary a great deal, ranging from mental abuse to mass killing. Subtypes of fanatics are:

• Religious fanatics, who try to impose religious beliefs or religious rules
• Ethnic fanatics, who coerce specific ethnic groups and
• Cultural fanatics, who try to impose cultural beliefs (for example about animal welfare in the fur industry, globalism or conservationism) upon others.

Security as a public good

From the political and public administration point of view, security is often coceived of as a public good. This means in particular that

1. it rests on commonly acquired values. Those values can be material (captial, infrastrucuture, utilites, etc.) or immaterial (security culture, sense of community, etc.)
2. it is commonly produced. This includes public-private partnershios as well as citizen participation and ownership (see civic culture);
3. nobody should be a priori exempt from its consumption.

It is therefore important to reconcile the idea of security with that of community. This can be done, for example, by including the concept of security culture into concepts for urban planning.

Critics have reprimanded any "clubbing of private security", which in their view contributes to the deconstruction of security as a public good, to the benefit of a short-sighted approach of mere physical risk reduction. This includes scepticism of approaches to urban planning such as the "designing out" approach, as well as any production of security by use of exclusionary practices.

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