The National Community Safety Network Job Site

‘News From Europe’

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By nature, collective violence are hard to tackle because they are often spontaneous (riots, gang fights) and even when they can be predicted (in case of large public events: institutional, sports and cultural), action is not easy to plan. Local authorities and community safety workers in Europe have an increasing role to play in designing strategies of prevention and in the day-by-day management of these issues.

June 26th, in Toulouse, EFUS members and partners were gathered around two panels of European speakers on the theme of “cities facing collective violence”. The diversity of experiences that were presented, the interest of the debates that took place and the good attendance made it a very successful event. Practical examples that attendees could confront to their own difficulties were presented.

M. Pupponi

 

 

 

M. Hartshorn, Superintendent and Chief Inspector of the Public Order Dept at the Metropolitan Police in London, emphasized the importance of the collaboration between police forces and local authorities, especially in the case of massive and potentially violent demonstrations. He case-studied public disorders linked to the pro-Palestinian demonstrations in London at the end of 2008: local officials had an important role of supplying evidence on the impact on the community, and resolving tensions between Police and stakeholders of the Jewish and pro-Palestinian communities.

M. Giron

 

 

 

Ms. Schlitz

 

 

 

More information, photos and videos of the event please visit:

www.efus.org or contact: burtonpage@urbansecurity.org

, Community Officer in Liège, Belgium, talked about the relation between mass media and collective violence. She stressed the importance of building links with the journalists in relatively “peaceful” times, so as to develop a mutual understanding and two-way strategy to potentially avoid spreading of violence by media–transmission. (It was one of the causes of the widespread riots in France, 2005)., Chief of the Prevention and Security department of the city of Seville, Spain, spoke about the “Botellon” phenomenon (literally big bottle), that can be compared to the Binge Drinking phenomenon in UK and elsewhere in Europe. Problems linked to binge drinking on public spaces are numerous, but he emphasized and gave extensive examples on how the city of Seville develops prevention strategies based on cultural activities to accompany young people throughout the night.presented his experience as MP and leader of the council Sarcelles, a city in the north suburb of Paris. Important issues of gang fights between different suburbs have been disturbing the community in recent years. He related the action of his city to tackle this type of violence, and stressed the positive impact of a global and integrated approach with a very efficient monitoring system to avoid gang -retaliation. Taking part in the French debate on the forthcoming Parliament Act that will be focusing on gangs, he said that instead of an Act (some part of which would be inapplicable), a National Action Plan should be developed to fight against gangs.