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

培育安全和包容的公共空间，使妇女和女孩感到安全，这是国家和国际关注的问题。在英国，2021年的Sabina Nessa以及2020年的Bibaa Henry和Nicole Smallman姐妹的谋杀案表明，有必要改善公共空间的安全，特别是城市公园，并提高女性在使用公共空间时的安全感。公园已被证明对健康和福祉有许多好处，但研究一直发现，人身安全是限制女性获得和使用绿地的一个重要因素，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不成比例，尤其是在天黑后。在公园环境中，性别差异最大，81%的女性报告称在天黑后独自行走感到不安全，而男性的这一比例为39%(英国国家统计局，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感到不安全的可能性是男性的2.5到5.7倍。一些国家，如挪威，已经设法显著缩小了这一性别差距。有效地预防城市公园中的VAWG涉及到设计和管理这些公共空间，既要阻止潜在的违法行为，又要确保妇女和女孩感到安全。西约克郡警方、西约克郡市长、西约克郡联合管理局、保持英国整洁、为女孩腾出空间、利兹妇女援助、ESRC脆弱性和警务未来研究中心以及利兹大学之间的合作伙伴关系由巴克和霍姆斯领导的最近完成的关于公园中妇女和女孩安全的研究结果建立并利用，旨在促进专业人员对妇女安全的思维方式的范式转变，为更安全、对妇女友好的公园制定区域和国家指导，并共同设计新的研究活动，试图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可有助于预防和减少公园内的VAWG，增强安全感，并建立对警务的信任和信心。预防犯罪的设计可能具有侵入性、难看和排他性，这实际上可能会增加妇女和女孩的恐惧，并减少脚步，而当人们通过公园时，脚步本身就起到了自然守护的作用。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，以及人身安全措施对可获得性和社会包容性的影响。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，有助于有效地预防和减少VAWG，并建立对警务的信心，同时确保预防犯罪与公园环境相一致，减轻对环境的影响，并且不传达警觉或恐惧的信息，这与绿地提供的自然、自由和宁静的感觉相反。这一项目的成果包括：为更安全、对妇女友好的公园共同编制区域和国家指南；关于妇女在公共场所的安全的国际研讨会；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工作，使公园对妇女和女孩更安全；以及为与这一议程相关的新研究活动共同设计计划。

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.