Fostering safer parks for women and girls through multi-agency collaboration, knowledge exchange and the co-design of research-informed guidance

营造安全和包容的公共空间，让妇女和女童感到安全，是国家和国际关注的问题。在英国，2021年的萨比娜·内萨（Sabina Nessa）和2020年的比芭·亨利（Bibaa Henry）和妮可·斯莫尔曼（Nicole Smallman）姐妹谋杀案表明，有必要提高公共空间，特别是城市公园的安全性，并增强女性使用它们时的安全感。公园已被证明对健康和福祉有许多好处，但研究一致发现，人身安全是限制妇女进入和使用绿色空间的一个重要因素，从而减少了这些好处。事实上，英国国家统计局（2021年）发现，在街道、繁忙的交通枢纽和当地公园等公共场所独自行走感到不安全，对妇女和女孩的影响尤其严重，尤其是在天黑之后。性别差异在公园环境中最大，81%的女性报告天黑后独自行走感到不安全，而男性的这一比例为39% （ONS， 2021年）。此外，根据欧洲社会调查，在整个欧洲，女性在天黑后独自行走时感到不安全的可能性是男性的2.5至5.7倍。一些国家，如挪威，已经成功地大大缩小了这种性别差距。有效预防城市公园中的女性暴力行为，包括设计和管理这些公共空间，既能阻止潜在的侵犯行为，又能确保妇女和女孩感到安全。基于Barker和Holmes最近完成的关于公园中妇女和女孩安全的研究结果，西约克郡警察局、西约克郡市长、西约克郡联合管理局、保持英国整洁、为女孩创造空间、利兹妇女援助、ESRC脆弱性和警务未来研究中心和利兹大学的目标是促进专业人士对女性安全的思考方式的范式转变，为更安全、女性友好的公园制定区域和国家指南，并共同设计新的研究活动，寻求了解涉及同情犯罪预防和景观设计的整体多机构方法，社区警务和公园管理有助于预防和减少公园内的VAWG，增强安全感，建立对警务的信任和信心。预防犯罪的设计可能是侵入性的、不雅观的和排斥性的，这实际上会增加妇女和女孩的恐惧，减少人流量，而人流量本身就像人们穿过公园时的自然守护者。它还可能产生其他潜在的负面环境和社会影响，例如安全照明和植被管理对生物多样性的影响，以及物理安全措施对可及性和社会包容的影响。该项目将共同设计新的研究方向，创造新的方式来思考公园设计和公园警务，有助于有效预防和减少VAWG，建立对警务的信心，同时确保预防犯罪与公园环境相一致，减轻环境影响，不传达警惕性或恐惧的信息，这与绿色空间提供的自然、自由和平静的感觉相反。该项目的成果包括：以研究为依据，共同编写了关于更安全、对女性友好的公园的区域和国家指南；关于妇女在公共场所安全的国际专题讨论会；通过改变专业人员对妇女安全的看法和加强多机构伙伴关系的工作，使公园成为妇女和女孩更安全的地方；并共同设计了与这一议程相关的新研究活动计划。

Fostering safe and inclusive public spaces where women and girls' feel safe is of national and international concern. In the UK, the murders of Sabina Nessa in 2021 and sisters Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman in 2020 show that there is a need to improve the safety of public spaces, notably urban parks, and enhance women's feelings of safety whilst using them. Public parks have been shown to have numerous benefits for health and wellbeing, yet research consistently finds that personal safety is a significant factor constraining women's access to and use of green spaces, thereby reducing those benefits. Indeed, the Office for National Statistics (2021) found that feeling unsafe walking alone in public places such as streets, busy transport hubs and local parks, disproportionately affects women and girls, particularly after dark. Gender disparities are greatest for park settings where 81% of women reported feeling unsafe walking alone after dark, compared with 39% of men (ONS, 2021). Moreover, across Europe, women are between 2.5 and 5.7 times more likely to feel unsafe walking alone than men after dark, according to the European Social Survey. Some countries, such as Norway, have managed to significantly narrow this gender gap.Effective prevention of VAWG in urban parks involves designing and managing these public spaces in ways which both deter potential offending and ensure women and girls feel safe. Building upon and harnessing the findings of recently completed research into women and girls' safety in public parks led by Barker and Holmes, this partnership collaboration between West Yorkshire Police, the Mayor of West Yorkshire, West Yorkshire Combined Authority, Keep Britain Tidy, Make Space for Girls, Leeds Women's Aid, the ESRC Vulnerability and Policing Futures Research Centre and the University of Leeds aims to foster a paradigm shift in the way professionals think about women's safety, develop regional and national guidance for safer, women friendly parks and co-design new research activities that seek to understand how holistic multi-agency approaches involving sympathetic crime prevention and landscape design, neighbourhood policing and park management can contribute to preventing and reducing VAWG in parks, enhance feelings of safety and build trust and confidence in policing. Crime prevention design can be intrusive, unsightly and exclusionary, which could actually increase women and girls' fear, and reduce footfall, which itself acts as natural guardianship as people pass through a park. It can also have other potentially negative environmental and social impacts, such as the impact of safety lighting and vegetation management on biodiversity and the impact of physical security measures on accessibility and social inclusion. The project will co-design new directions in research that create new ways to think about park design and park policing that contribute to the effective prevention and reduction of VAWG and build confidence in policing, while ensuring that crime prevention is sympathetic to the park environment, mitigates environmental impacts and does not convey a message of alertness or fear, which is the opposite of the sense of nature, freedom and calmness that green spaces offer. Outcomes from this project include: research-informed, co-produced regional and national guidance for safer, women friendly parks; an international symposium on women's safety in public spaces; making parks safer places for women and girls through changing the ways professionals think about women's safety and strengthening multi-agency partnership working; and co-designed plans for new research activities linked to this agenda.