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Abstract
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Violence is a global public health problem with complex causes at the individual, family, community and societal levels (World Health Organization [WHO], 2002a). Violence can be divided into three broad categories according to the perpetrator of the violent act: interpersonal violence; self-directed violence; and collective violence (WHO, 2002b). This review will focus specifically on the category of interpersonal violence. Worldwide, the direct impact of interpersonal violence is estimated at 1400 deaths per day (WHO, 2002b) and the economic cost is estimated to be between $95 billion and $163 billion per year (Geneva Declaration Secretariat, cited in Willman & Makisaka, 2010). For victims, mortality, physical and psychological damage, disability, and social problems are immediate and long-lasting outcomes of violence (WHO, 2002a).
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines violence as: "The intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment or deprivation." (WHO Global Consultation on Violence and Health, cited in WHO, 2002b, p. 5). Communities are at risk of violence when violence has historically been present in the area, when firearms are easily available and sections of the population have been trained in their use (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime [UNODC] & the Latin America and the Caribbean Region of the World Bank, 2007). Weakness of state security institutions, including the criminal justice system and the military, is also associated with higher levels of violence at the societal level (UNODC, 2005). Rapid urbanization, low education levels, and high income inequality, especially when divided along religious, ethnic, or racial lines, further increase the risks of violence in a society (Willman & Makisaka, 2010).
Developing countries are particularly affected by violent crime, with interpersonal violence a leading cause of death and disability (Hofman, Primack, Keusch, & Hrynkow, 2005; Liebling & Kiziri-Mayengo, 2002; Morrison, Ellsberg, & Bott, 2007; Seedat, Van Niekerk, Jewkes, Suffla, & Ratele, 2009). Interpersonal violence can indirectly suppress growth in developing countries if local or international businesses refrain from investing socially or economically in developing areas plagued by violence (Akpokodje, Bowles, & Tigere, 2002). Fear of violence also prohibits development by preventing local citizens from traveling to work and school, encouraging capital flight, increasing brain drain as educated citizens leave troubled areas, and lowering social cohesion (Willman & Makisaka, 2010).
The World Health Organisation typology of violence categorises violent acts into self-directed violence, interpersonal violence and collective violence, and notes that whilst the nature of the violent act may be similar across categories, the causal mechanisms and motives for each category of violence are very different (WHO, 2002b). The nature of effective interventions will also differ across categories, and therefore the effectiveness of interventions would need to be reviewed separately for each category. Whilst collective violence is a clear threat to the stability and growth of developing countries, the complexities of the specific contexts of collective violence - such as war, state violence, genocide, or terrorist activity - mean that interventions to combat collective violence are likely to be dependent on socio-political context, and are considered to be outside the scope of the present review. Our review focuses on interpersonal violent crimes in developing countries. We define interpersonal violence as those acts of violence - such as assault, homicide, rape, kidnapping, sexual assault, and maltreatment - committed by one person or small group against another person or small group.
This review focuses on community-oriented policing interventions and their ability to prevent or reduce violence in developing countries. Despite the continuity implied by the terms "developing" and "developed," we propose that there are significant and qualitative differences between community-oriented policing initiatives in established democracies and those that are implemented in developing countries. Variability in institutional histories and capacities of police agencies in developed and developing countries creates great contextual differences in the way community-oriented policing is conceptualized and implemented in developed versus developing democracies. We recognize that what might be deemed a successful community-oriented policing intervention in developed countries might be fundamentally inappropriate or interpreted quite differently in the context of policing in developing nations. These developing countries may have low police professionalism, poor relations between police and the public, under-equipped police services, an unstable political and/or socio-economic situation, and, in some cases, low community enthusiasm and participation (Eijkman, 2006; Frühling, 2007, 2011). Moreover, scholars argue that western models of community-oriented policing fail to be adaptable to local culture, histories and experiences, and are insensitive to social contexts (Brogden, 2002). Overall, we argue that the histories and structural context of policing in developed and developing countries are so fundamentally different that we plan to include only community-oriented policing interventions that target populations in developing countries. To date there are no published systematic reviews or meta-analyses examining the impact of community-oriented policing in developing countries. This review seeks to establish whether community-oriented policing is a successful strategy to reduce interpersonal violent crime in developing countries.
Language: en |