Preventing Discriminatory Violence at the Local Level: Practices and Recommendations
2.4. Targeted Prevention
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Preventive measures that aim at preempting incidents play a central role in strategies in all fields of urban security policy. However, Efus and other stakeholders consider that repressive responses to phenomena of violence and crime still prevail too often. This is no less true of discriminatory violence, where the implementation of so-called hate crime laws, i.e. penal code reforms that increase sentences for culprits who act on the ground of discriminatory motivations, has often taken centre stage in international debates in criminology as well as politics.
volunteers, and address situations or contexts that entail a specific risk of victimisation, e.g. nightlife or partying scenes, sports events, etc. These measures are often customised to the specific risks faced by different communities, among them religious groups such as Muslims and Jews, as well as the LGBT community, sex workers or persons with disabilities.
Preventive measures can be classified in three main categories: primary or universal prevention, secondary or selective prevention, and tertiary or indicated prevention (see Brantingham/Faust 1976: 288). Following this widely used scheme, a wide range of activities covering broadly perceived education and awareness-raising initiatives as well as specific measures to preclude recidivism with individual victims or culprits can be considered as prevention.
For the purpose of this publication, the term "targeted prevention" has been chosen to encompass practices that aim to prevent acts of discriminatory violence in a concrete and focused manner. Measures of targeted prevention go to the places and contexts where prejudice, hate and intolerance take place, work with those involved in dynamics of discrimination and violence, and provide tools to break these cycles and usher in less hostile, more inclusive forms of interaction.
Practices in this section deliver concrete and specific measures to prevent acts of discriminatory violence in different spheres of social life. They work with various target groups such as law enforcement professionals, journalists, religious leaders, teachers and students, civil society organisations and
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