The Algarve has been included in a plan by Portugal’s Ministry of Internal Administration (MAI) to review the country’s approach to tackling urban crime, focusing on solutions that extend beyond municipal borders.
The Minister of Internal Administration said today that efforts to combat crime in major urban areas should not be confined to municipal structures, advocating instead for a “comprehensive model” that transcends local administrative boundaries.
“Urban areas are not defined by municipalities; the city is the entire continuous territorial space,” said Luís Neves during a conference in Lisbon organised by the capital’s Municipal Police.
“I believe this will take time and will not depend solely on me,” he said, adding that “we must consider systems that operate on a larger scale" when tackling crime and when “balancing our resources”, which are currently organised along municipal lines. Neves was speaking at the conference titled ‘Social cohesion and the challenges of urban polarisation: a local security strategy.’
“In the coming months we will reflect on this idea here [in Lisbon], in Porto and in the Algarve so that there is consistency” in crime prevention across municipalities sharing continuous urban areas.
At present, each municipality operates its own “command centre”, but in the future, while such structures may remain, “there must be continuity” and “there can be no compartmentalisation” of resources, he argued, stressing the need for a logical sequence in the deployment of security means.
According to Neves, “urban life cannot be managed from offices alone”, but requires a combination of inclusive public policies, neighbourhood-level resources, video surveillance tools, improved cleanliness and care of public spaces, and stronger local communities.
He warned that society is currently experiencing “a period of tension in urban spaces, a time of latent confrontation”, in which “the social fabric that binds us appears dangerously worn” and where “polarisation is more than an academic abstraction, it is reflected in the way public space is occupied”.
For that reason, he said, responses are needed that restore cohesion and reinforce the presence of the state “so that no one feels like an outsider”, because “security is built through presence, both institutional and community-based”.
“It is therefore essential to ensure presence in public spaces and encourage participation by residents, traders, and everyone who lives in the city,” he added, in order to create “an informal network of security”.
In this way, he concluded, “the street ceases to be merely a place of passage and becomes a fully lived space”, because “when the community is present, indifference recedes”, helping to reduce the risk of crime.
Source: LUSA
