and present it’s implementation as a prototype in sec-
tion 5. We round up this paper in section 6 by a con-
clusion and look out for future work.
2 FUNDAMENTALS AND
CHALLENGES
In 2010 for the first time worldwide more people live
in cities than in the rural area (BPB10, 2010, p. 47).
The consequences of that trend have been analyzed by
Urban 21: the experts’ report on the future of cities
(Hall and Pfeiffer, 2000, p. 205). For mature cities
the report predicts, for example, the proceeding sepa-
ration of rich and poor people in urban areas and in-
creasing conflicts between them. Crimes as a conse-
quence of social tensions due to poverty are regarded
as the classical theory in criminology(Eisner, 1997, p.
39-41). Statistics prove a higher occurrence of crimi-
nality in cities than in rural areas (e.g. (BKA07, 2007,
p. 46)). For the reasons for having an urban-rural gap
in criminality we refer to Oberwittler and Koellisch
(Oberwittler and Koellisch, 2003, p. 135).
Not only is the criminality higher in big cities but
also the fear of crime. Surveys from 1999 (compare
(BKA99, 1999, p. 48) among others) show a remark-
able difference in the categories ‘felt insecurity’ and
‘going to be a victim soon’ depending on the size of
the population (Wurtzbacher, 2008, p. 59). Especially
street crimes like the ones mentioned in section 1 have
a considerable effect on the sense of security, due to a
high number of possibilities to commit a crime on the
one hand and the few chances to avoid such crimes
on the other hand (Koetzsche and Hamacher, 1990, p.
6ff).
According to Boers, the reasons for a higher fear
of crime can be broken down in three categories
(Boers, 1991, p. 45ff): A person fears crime more
after being a victim (victimization perspective), the
fear of crime increases with the loss of informal so-
cial control (social-control perspective), and media,
politics, and official institutions influence the percep-
tion of the security (social-problem perspective). The
theory of the social control perspective is closely re-
lated to the Broken Windows Theory by Wilson and
Kelling (Luedemann and Ohlemacher, 2002, p.144).
Since informal social control plays a major role in
crime as well as in the fear of crime, it is worth to
be investigated more deeply. Fassmann (Fassmann,
2009) describes the differences between urban and ru-
ral areas, also focusing on social relationships. In a
big city it is not possible to know all people by their
names, characteristics and history. The traditional in-
teraction with neighbors through knowing and caring
for them is replaced by anonymous and often chang-
ing contacts to a big circle of acquaintances. Regard-
ing to Simmel (Simmel, 1903, p. 122), townspeo-
ple can’t face others with the same emotionality (par-
ticipating, understanding) and they build up a shield
against many of the stimuli in a city. Townspeople
do not only react differently to their environment, but
they also notice only parts of the reality around them
(e.g. people in need).
The characteristics of people living in a city also
affect the emergency process. Whether citizens are
willing to help people in need depends on a number
of criteria explained by Darley and Latane in the so-
cial help process (see figure 1). For a detailed anal-
ysis, especially focusing on the bystander effect, the
main reason for unhelpful crowds, we refer to (Geyer-
Schulz et al., 2010).
Studies also show that people help more often, if
they know the area. A person, who has fallen down,
gets less help in an airport than at a subway station
(Luedemann and Ohlemacher, 2002, p. 154). We ar-
gue that the criteria ‘known environment’ influences
helpfulness.
One main point of our suggested territory-based
service framework is the aim to strengthen the infor-
mal social control of citizens since this reduces the
fear of crime as well as crime itself.
3 RELATED WORK
This section takes a look at the latest concepts dealing
with crime, participation of citizens and using infor-
mation and communication technologies.
The region of Brandenburg (Germany) offers a
portal offering persons, registered by email, the possi-
bility to report issues to the city administration. Mes-
sages are categorized (waste, vandalism...), contain
a description, a postal address, the possibility to add
pictures and a processing status. The issues can be
tracked by users and employees. Employees of the
city administration update the issues. This leads to
an increased transparency (Mae10, 2007). FixMyS-
treet (http://www.fixmystreet.com) follows a similar
approach.
To inform their citizens about crime, the Los An-
geles Police Department (LAPD) publishes a crime
map. The crime map is part of an E-Policing strategy
which applies the community policing ideas through
the internet. A police district includes several ‘Ba-
sic Car’-districts. Citizens have the possibility to en-
gage as Senior Lead Officer who is the contact per-
son for the local inhabitants. His task is to watch
local criminality and to inform the police and the
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