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1 – 10 of over 64000In order to ensure the public safety of residential areas, starting with the urban public safety of Xi'an, the construction environment of defense safety, fire safety and traffic…
Abstract
In order to ensure the public safety of residential areas, starting with the urban public safety of Xi'an, the construction environment of defense safety, fire safety and traffic safety, and the public safety environment of residential areas are investigated. According to the characteristics of housing in Xi'an planned economy era and market economy era, the existing situation is analyzed from the aspects of overall planning layout, road traffic space, building monomer, public activity space, greening space, and lighting facilities. Based on the analysis results, the principles of planning and design of public safety space environment in Xi'an residential areas are put forward. The planning and design methods of residential space environment are discussed and studied in detail from the aspects of residential defense safety, fire safety, and traffic safety, so as to provide reference for the planning and design of urban residential safety and to create a safe, healthy and harmonious living environment for residents.
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Building a culture of safety in transportation is not dissimilar from building a culture of safety in health. Public health is widely known for protecting the public from diseases…
Abstract
Building a culture of safety in transportation is not dissimilar from building a culture of safety in health. Public health is widely known for protecting the public from diseases through milk pasteurization and chlorination of drinking water, and from injuries by implementing environmental and occupational safeguards and fostering behavioral change. Lifestyle and environmental changes that have contributed to the reductions in smoking and heart disease can also help change driving, walking and cycling behaviors, and environments. Stimulating a culture of safety on the road means providing safe and accessible transportation for all. The vision for a culture of traffic safety is to change the public’s attitude about the unacceptable toll from traffic injuries and to implement a systems approach to traffic injury prevention as a means for improving public health and public safety. Framing the motor vehicle injury problem in this way provides an opportunity for partnerships between highway safety and public health to improve the culture of safety.
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Stewart Selase Hevi, Gifty Enyonam Ketemepi, Caroline Dorkoo and Akorfa Wuttor
This paper aims to investigate how community policing experience elicits public trust in the police, citizens’ psychological safety and community well-being in Ghana.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate how community policing experience elicits public trust in the police, citizens’ psychological safety and community well-being in Ghana.
Design/methodology/approach
A cluster sampling technique was used in the selection of 474 community members, who answered questions relating to community policing experience, public trust in the police, citizens’ psychological safety and community well-being. Structural equation modelling was employed to test the relationships and effects of the hypothesized paths.
Findings
The findings showed that community policing experience was positively related to public trust in the police, citizens’ psychological safety and community well-being in Ghana.
Research limitations/implications
Mediation does not fall within the scope of the current study; hence, issues of indirect effects among the variables were not examined. Nevertheless, future studies should consider investigating the phenomenon through mediation analysis.
Practical implications
The study further highlights that probable negative consequences of divulging information to the police about potential or actual crime may hinder citizens from engaging with police. Hence, police administrators must find ways to conceal identities of whistle blowers on crime and its related issues, so they do not suffer any personal cost.
Originality/value
In this research, the academic scope of community policing was expanded by linking the concepts of public trust in police, citizens’ psychological safety and community well-being, which the study admits has been undertaken separately in empirical policing literature but not within the context of developing countries such as Ghana.
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Adewumi Israel Badiora, Christopher A. Wojuade and Adeniyi S. Adeyemi
Crime in public places is an increasing concern for the police, users of public places and the general public at large. Significantly, users of public transport facilities…
Abstract
Purpose
Crime in public places is an increasing concern for the police, users of public places and the general public at large. Significantly, users of public transport facilities consistently perceive their risks from crime to be considerably higher, hurting levels of patronage. The aim of this study is to examine concerns for personal safety and measures that could improve sense of personal safety in a Nigerian public transport facility. This study further examines whether respondents’ perceptions determine frequent use of this public place. Explanatory factors are personal safety and place improvements concerns ratings.
Design/methodology/approach
The study adopted a case study. The selection of this was accomplished using carefully defined criteria in previous studies. The research process consists of three steps the on-site assessment, objective insecurity assessment and subjective insecurity survey. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected. Quantitative data were explored using mean ranking, percentages and correlation, whereas qualitative information was analysed using narrative techniques of reporting. To define the major determinants of the frequent use of this public place, a multiple ordinary least squares regression was constructed for variables in the correlation model.
Findings
Results show that places within the site are not designed to meet crime prevention through environmental design strategies, as 625 crimes were documented with thefts well above other listed crimes. Respondents exhibited a significant level of concern for their safety across all the factors enumerated while the most important improvements concern was enhancements to lighting. Generally, findings suggest that there is still much to be done to improve elements of surveillance, access control, territoriality, image management and activity support on the site. Regression model shows that efforts to enhance perceived safety of users would have major significance on the frequent use of this facility.
Practical implications
Policies on public place developments should be mainly in terms of tackling the environmental design of car parks and the effects of darkness at night time. This should involve improvement of lighting and the installation of CCTV, security camera as well as constant maintenance of bushes, vegetation, plants, trees and other elements of the landscape. Furthermore, the aesthetics of the site has to be attractive to users. The site and its closest surroundings have to be well-maintained and cared for. Besides, place lines and private areas must be defined with plants, pavement treatments, short walls or fences.
Originality/value
Previous studies on safety and security of public transport places, particularly rail facility, have mainly concentrated on the relations between fear of crime, perceived safety and place improvement concerns. To the best of authors’ knowledge, no study till date has explored how they correlate to the patronage of the transport facility, particularly in the sub-Saharan nations. This study contributes to existing literature having revealed perceived personal safety and transport place improvements concerns to be another important dimension of rail transport patronage in the Nigerian context.
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A threatened sense of safety in public spaces is a problem for liveable communities. For better public policies, this study investigates multi-dimensional and multi-scalar aspects…
Abstract
Purpose
A threatened sense of safety in public spaces is a problem for liveable communities. For better public policies, this study investigates multi-dimensional and multi-scalar aspects of gendered perceived safety and strategies by women and men in daily public spaces.
Design/methodology/approach
A face-to-face survey with 40 men and 50 women in a public space (Izmir, Turkey) is deployed. Descriptive statistics and regression analysis compare participants' perceptions of and strategies for safety across the city, neighbourhood and the study site.
Findings
Their experienced-based familiarities in public places increase women's perceived safety. As safety strategies, different place-based and gendered-preconditions appear for women and men going “outside” especially “alone” (i.e. unaccompanied). Reaffirming female vulnerability in public places, gendered preconditions include individuals' attributes. Of place-based preconditions, crowd and police are significant mechanisms for safety but emphasized differently by women and men. Housewives' female companionship in the study site develops a class- and gender-based claim for a safe place away from their underserved neighbourhood.
Practical implications
Gendered- and place preconditions for women's safety can inform design policies about surveillance and permeability of public spaces. Lack of data about class-based differences about perceived safety is a limitation.
Originality/value
Among a few, it takes perceived safety as performative acts with learned strategies across (rather than momentary perceptions in) socio-spatial spaces and provides a research framework that considers such acts with individual and spatial dimensions across multiple socio-spatial scales.
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Jens Sjöberg, Cecilia Cassinger and Renira Rampazzo Gambarato
The research aim of this article is to generate novel insights into how public sector organizations (PSOs) strategically communicate with the public about critical issues on…
Abstract
Purpose
The research aim of this article is to generate novel insights into how public sector organizations (PSOs) strategically communicate with the public about critical issues on social media. To this end, the study explores the public's experiences of the Swedish Police's sense of safety communication on Instagram in the third largest city in Sweden, where the lack of a sense of public safety is a main societal challenge.
Design/methodology/approach
The research was designed as a case study employing photo-elicitation interviews as a method to collect the empirical material. A phenomenography approach was used to analyze public experiences of the Swedish Police's Instagram communication in Malmö, Sweden.
Findings
Findings show that the police's strategic communication of safety on Instagram is experienced along the dimensions of a sense of protection, a sense of proximity and a sense of ambiguity. Taken together, these dimensions broaden and develop the knowledge of what communicating a sense of safety in the public sphere entails.
Originality/value
This study adds to previous research on strategic communication in public sector organizations by demonstrating what strategic communication accomplishes at the receiving end outside of the organization.
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Shijiu Yin, Ying Li, Yusheng Chen, Linhai Wu and Jiang Yan
The purpose of this paper is to analyse the factors that influence food safety reporting intention and behaviour of the public.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyse the factors that influence food safety reporting intention and behaviour of the public.
Design/methodology/approach
Data used in this study came from a questionnaire survey conducted in Shandong Province, China. The 642 qualified samples were analysed through structural equation model based on the expanded theory of planned behaviour to study public food safety reporting behaviour and its influencing factors.
Findings
Results indicated that participation attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioural control (PBC) and moral norm had significantly positive effects on public reporting intention, which had a direct effect on behaviour. Among subjective norm, descriptive norm had a more significant influence on the intention to report than injunctive norm. PBC indirectly affected reporting behaviour through participation intention, and directly affected participation behaviour. Socio-demographic variables had significant influence on participation attitude, injunctive norm and PBC, whereas these variables had no influence on descriptive norm and moral norm.
Originality/value
This research is of academic value and of value to policy makers. To promote public participation in food safety reporting, the government should consider influencing factors of food safety reporting.
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Katarzyna Sienkiewicz-Małyjurek
The purpose of this paper is to identify correlations between relational behaviours and organisational capabilities in public safety networks and to investigate how do relational…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to identify correlations between relational behaviours and organisational capabilities in public safety networks and to investigate how do relational behaviours influence organisational capabilities in these networks.
Design/methodology/approach
The findings presented in this paper are based on data including: desk research and a survey questionnaire conducted in June 2016 with experts dealing with the issues of the public safety. The analysis of the results was based on a reflexive and formative approach, including the partial least squares path modelling method.
Findings
The relationships between relational behaviours and organisational capabilities in public safety networks are investigated and the path of building organisational capabilities in these networks is identified. As a result, it was found how to shape collaborative performance by using the impact of relational behaviours on the organisational capabilities in public safety networks.
Originality/value
The paper adds a new value to understanding of the impact of relationship behaviour on organisational capabilities in public safety networks, leading to collaborative performance. Its innovation results from using a reflective and formative approach, based on the modelling of structural equations, which allows identifying new issues or problems and examine the connections between them. The obtained results constitute a new insight on the formation of collaborative networks in public safety.
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The author explored the direct and indirect relationships between policing and citizen satisfaction, considering both the policing and neighborhood context at the regional level.
Abstract
Purpose
The author explored the direct and indirect relationships between policing and citizen satisfaction, considering both the policing and neighborhood context at the regional level.
Design/methodology/approach
The author conducted regression and path analysis based on the combined data of 190 local governments from the Korean National Police Agency, the Korean Crime Victim Survey and Statistics Korea.
Findings
Patrol officers, a public safety budget, criminal arrests and perceived safety were positively associated with citizen satisfaction, whereas drinking rate was negatively associated with citizen satisfaction. The arrest rate partially mediated the relationship between the public safety budget and citizen satisfaction. In addition, the relationship between drinking rate and citizen satisfaction with police was partially mediated by perceived safety.
Practical implications
Police and local governments should enhance citizen satisfaction by improving poor indicators of policing and neighborhood context and by considering the dynamics between factors.
Originality/value
Studies analyzing the mediating effects on citizen satisfaction with police are still lacking.
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Patricia Magdalena Schütte, Malte Schönefeld, Yannic Schulte and Frank Fiedrich
Between 2020 and spring 2022, health safety was the new pressing concern among the risks at major events. It seemed that it – respectively hygiene as part of infection control …
Abstract
Purpose
Between 2020 and spring 2022, health safety was the new pressing concern among the risks at major events. It seemed that it – respectively hygiene as part of infection control – was as important as event safety if an event in Germany was to be approved. Problems aroused in terms of an equal implementation in practice. This article therefore addresses how safety and hygiene aspects interacted during event planning and implementation phases.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors draw on qualitative data from a German research project. They use results from eleven semi-structured expert interviews and four field observations at major events. One guiding assumption in the content analysis is that there are major interrelations between event and health safety concepts, which become visible during planning and the implementation of event-related technical, organisational and personal measures.
Findings
The empirical data shows that hygiene is not perceived as an integral part of event safety, but rather as a disconnected pillar beside the “classical” event safety. This is reflected in an imbalanced attention as well as in separate, disintegrated concepts. This disconnectedness leaves room for unwanted interplays between event and health safety as well as potential legitimacy facades.
Originality/value
Most studies to date focus on the effectiveness of hygiene concepts and impacts of COVID-19 on the event sector in general without taking a closer look at interactions between event safety and health safety.
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