Crime prevention based on the strategic mapping of living conditions

This paper presents a theoretically and methodologically grounded GIS-based model for the measurement and mapping of an index of living conditions in urban residential areas across Sweden. Further, the model is compared and evaluated using the Swedish Police’s assessment of crime-exposed areas. The results indicate that the geographically measured vulnerable living conditions overlap to a large extent with the areas assessed to be crime-exposed by the Swedish Police. Over 61% of the police-defined crime-exposed areas are characterized by vulnerable living conditions. The results also show that this overlap is not perfect and that there are vulnerable areas that are not included in the police’s assessment of crime-exposed areas, but which are nonetheless characterized by vulnerable living conditions that could negatively affect the development of crime. It is also proposed that the model and the mapped index of living conditions can provide a more well-grounded scientific basis for the police’s assessment work. As a first step, the Swedish police have implemented the model and the mapped index in the work process employed in their annual identification of crime-exposed or at-risk areas. In addition to assisting the police, the model and the mapped index could also be used to support other societal actors working with vulnerable areas. © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland

Stories of the storm : the interconnection between risk management strategies and everyday experiences of rurality

Households play an important role in risk management. In this article, we take a closer look at risk management strategies applied by rural citizens in relation to an actual situation: a specific storm. The storm chosen, named Ivar, hit the northern parts of Sweden in December 2013 and caused major blackouts and heavy problems for road and train traffic due to extensive tree falls. After the storm, there were persistent problems with electricity, Internet, telephone communications, heating and drinking water supply, especially in the affected rural areas. The aim of this article is to explore the interconnection between risk management strategies and living conditions among rural citizens affected by this storm and its aftermath. The empirical material consists of narrative interviews with households from the area most affected by the storm: a small company town where the citizens were without electricity for 5-10 days after the storm. Our analysis resulted in two broad storylines ('stories of social dismantling' and 'stories of capability') illustrating how household risk management is intertwined with subjective experiences of rurality. That is, the households made sense of their experiences of the storm by relating them to an urban norm and to the everyday experience of living in 'the periphery'. By that, rural households' risk management strategies can be understood as a manifestation of different power relations in society (urban/rural, centre/periphery) as well as being embedded in the everyday experience of rurality

Why do forest owners fail to heed warning? : conflicting risk evaluations made by the Swedish forestagency and forest owners

In the aftermath of a hurricane in Sweden thatfelled some 250 million trees, the Swedish Forest Agency advised forest ownersto reduce forest vulnerability by planting different tree species. This paperanalyses why forest owners failed to heed the Forest Agency’s recommendation,thereby reproducing a forest vulnerable to storms. This paper focuses on thedeliberations and risk evaluations of forest owners when deciding which treespecies to plant. The analysis identifies three main categories of reasoningthat guided the forest owners’ decision-making process: short-term economicreasoning caused by the pressing situation they faced; an understanding ofwindstorms as natural catastrophes that are impossible to influence; and theuncertainties associated with alternative forest management practices.Furthermore, given their risk-averse strategy, their approach to understandingand coping with uncertainty was crucial in determining their responses. Thispaper concludes that the forest owners primarily employed experience-based,practical and embodied knowledge, implying that abstract risks and theoreticalknowledge regarding future developments were not deemed relevant. An additionalconclusion is that even if a huge storm felling shows the need to change forestmanagement practice, it does not provide the most favourable social conditionsfor achieving change.Funding Agency:Forestry Research Institute of Sweden (Skogforsk)  Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU)  Umea University Future Fores

ICT-Enabled Citizen Co-production in Excluded Areas – Using Volunteers in Emergency Response

One of many contemporary public-sector challenges is the increasing socio-economic gaps and excluded areas in many cities worldwide. This study explores ICT-enabled citizen co-production using volunteers as first responders in excluded areas near Stockholm, the capital of Sweden. The study indicates that these volunteers can make a major difference if arriving first at an emergency site, e.g. saving lives by administering CPR and extinguishing fires before they spread. Major challenges relate to individual versus collective engagement, gender aspects and language barriers. Current ICT support, in the form of text messages or a basic app, is deemed sufficient but, for the initiative to expand and enable long-term effective engagement, calibrated solutions matching competence, role and language with incident and area are needed. In a public-sector innovation context, the study highlights the need for future research on digitalized co-production with an explicit focus on the ICT artifact and its co-creation artifact as catalysts for change. In relation to this, this study confirms previous research arguing for the merging of policy science and information systems research in an era of rapid digitalized public-sector transformation, but adds that they need to be complemented by perspectives from sociology, e.g. on gender and ethnicity, in initiatives involving citizens in excluded areas