Undertaking to prevent crime and create public safety
Stockholm must be a safe, secure and well-maintained city – to live, work and spend time in. This is the goal of the City’s overall crime prevention work and measures to increase public safety and security.
Through long-term, structured work, the City aims to achieve the goal of having no particularly vulnerable or vulnerable areas, and to decrease the sense of insecurity by 50% from 2020 to 2025.
Levels of crime and insecurity are often closely linked to the sense of freedom and quality of life of Stockholmers.
The City’s public safety programme provides the structure for this work
The City has a central role in work to enhance public safety and reduce crime in society. These efforts take place in schools and social services, and in development efforts to create a clean, attractive and safe urban environment. All efforts must be effective and based on knowledge-based methods.
The City’s operation to prevent crime and create public safety is based on the City of Stockholm’s public safety programme 2021–2023. The programme provides a structure for the City’s undertaking to prevent crime and create public safety.
Efforts to reduce crime and insecurity involves all of the City’s councils, committees and executive boards. To achieve results, external collaboration is also needed.
Crime prevention efforts
The purpose of crime prevention is to reduce, limit or eliminate crime and its harmful effects. Crime prevention is usually divided into two elements: social and situational crime prevention.
Situational crime prevention involves preventing or making it more difficult for crimes to be committed by changing the place or situation in question. Vehicle obstacles, cameras, security guards, lighting measures and visibility improvement measures are all examples of situational prevention.
Social crime prevention involves influencing people’s propensity to commit crimes by reinforcing the individual’s capacity for self-control, thereby strengthening social ties with society. Early parental support, participation in preschool, an effective school education and targeted social measures are examples of social prevention.
Efforts to create public safety
Public safety means having faith in your fellow human beings and feeling secure. A feeling of safety also requires an absence of fear, worry and risk. Targeted measures to create public safety can be implemented, not with a primary purpose to prevent crime, but to increase the safety of residents. This might be, for example, initiatives that create an attractive and accessible public environment for different target groups, in squares or in parks.