Addiction and often the crimes associated with it are shaped not only by social geography but also by the physical environment. By David Best
In every town and city there are streets to be avoided, pubs with reputations for crime and violence and areas that are renowned for their proliferation of drug dealing and its related social problems.
As reported last week (22 July, p43), radical plans are being proposed to stop the crime created by Britain’s drinking culture. But it is not just a social problem – environmental factors also have a part to play.
Back in 1942, theorists in Chicago identified “the spatial patterning of deviant behaviour”, realising that juvenile delinquency was at its highest in city centres. As one moved away from the centre, the incidences declined.
The research may be dated, but, in terms of today’s addiction problems, it does suggest two useful things – that areas with low individual identification – for example, high-rise blocks of flats – may promote drug and alcohol use while those areas that promote ownership of “defensible space” – for example, family homes – steer the residents away from it.
Addicts need self-respect and pride in their physical setting to give them encouragement if treatment for substance abuse is to be successful.
Architectural design can make all the difference to an area, complementing schemes such as NeighbourhoodWatch and initiatives to increase street lighting and the visibility of play areas by invoking community ownership and partnership.
Design to deter
However, it is not sufficient just to provide mechanisms that permit non-users in a community to feel confident and proud of their environment – it should be possible to design communities that do not promote and sustain the misuse of drugs or drink.
Incorporating viable and accessible leisure facilities and integrated community resources, for example, into the area is one way. Second, and more important, is to avoid the establishment of ghetto areas where drug culture becomes the norm.
One main way is to prevent easy access to empty housing stock – the traditional bases for drug factories, shooting galleries and adolescent drinking and solvent abuse.
Much drug and alcohol crime, including alcohol-related violence and drug-related acquisitive crime, is opportunistic and not committed by a hard core of recidivistic offenders.
If crimes can be prevented by reducing the opportunity for crime through policing activities designed to prevent dealing, easy-access open streets, and pubs and clubs being spread out to lessen after-hours encounters, then the likelihood of “displacement” – when the use is moved elsewhere – is significantly reduced.
Alcohol-related violence is a good example of how educators can work with architects to discourage binge drinking: attractively designed pubs with food areas and alternative leisure uses that put the emphasis on social contact.
By creating a physical and social environment in which problematic drinking is discouraged, those who are drunk are less likely to engage in violent or other criminal behaviour inside or outside the pub.
It is slightly more complex when tackling the problem of illicit drugs, however. Those using drugs are more likely to be at their own home or the dealer’s. This does not, however, mean that the situation cannot be addressed by architectural initiatives embedded within a wider social context.
The first element is again to establish pride in the surroundings: where not only non-users regard discarded needles and injecting paraphernalia as unacceptable but those using drugs also take pride in the community.
It is not clear whether heroin users, for example, will always travel far if their drug is not readily available. So again, a physical geography that discourages overt dealing – community policing, designing out “black spots” and unseen areas and community education – will reduce chances for initiation and recreational use.
Tackling the problems
There are three different levels where discouraging drug or drink use can be tackled. At micro level, the design of buildings that encourage dealing and use can be altered. At another level, neighbourhoods can be redefined to create defensible spaces in communities that are proactive and involved.
Finally, at a macro level, wider social and political initiatives in public housing and community initiatives are important.
Drug and alcohol problems do not occur randomly. While it may not be possible to completely eradicate them by environmental manipulation, planners, architects and policymakers have a role to play by promoting community ownership and by designing out the “hotspots” that promote, for example, dealing and substance-related violence.
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Design to discourage |
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All inhabitants need to be proud of their environment |
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