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On one stretch of Troy Street in Spring Valley, four illegal marijuana dispensaries are open for business. Each uses green paint and the ubiquitous green cross to distinguish themselves. To better stand out, some use Google Maps' red teardrop icon, turned green and with the words "You are Here" in bold lettering. At night, the dispensaries' storefronts are lit with bright green Christmas lights.

This portion of Troy Street has become the region's de facto green mile - a thoroughfare packed with pot.

Four more illegal marijuana dispensaries sit just a short drive away on Campo Road and Dolores Street in Casa de Oro, one of them a stone's throw from a preschool.

A majority of San Diego County voters in 2016 supported Proposition 64, the statewide measure that allowed local municipalities to legalize and regulate recreational marijuana. Legal recreational cannabis dispensaries are now open in the city of San Diego, which has passed its own industry regulations. Nearby La Mesa is in the process of licensing dispensaries, too.

But the San Diego County Board of Supervisors voted last year to ban cannabis dispensaries and farms in unincorporated communities like Spring Valley, Casa de Oro and Lakeside. Enforcing the ban, it turns out, has been extremely difficult.

Four dispensaries are legally permitted to sell medical cannabis in unincorporated parts of the county. But when the county board of supervisors banned dispensaries, it also said those medical operations needed to shut down by April of 2022. Every other dispensary in unincorporated communities are unlicensed and illegal. A county spokeswoman said they know of at least 38.

Tina Carlson, the executive director of the Spring Valley Chamber of Commerce, said illegal dispensaries in the unincorporated county are out of control, and local residents and business owners can't do anything about it.

"I get more complaints on marijuana dispensaries than you would believe - emails and phone calls daily," Carlson said. "The dispensaries here are relentless. I have seen one dispensary on Dale Avenue in Spring Valley get raided, shut down and then reopen four hours later. It's like an open wound. They close it and then it's open and bleeding again."

Raiding Illegal Dispensaries Takes Time

In January, I tagged along to watch San Diego County Sheriff's Department deputies close down an unlicensed cannabis dispensary in Spring Valley.

Called The Bakery, the dispensary opened last year on Birch Street, in the middle of a low-income neighborhood with nearby apartment complexes, single-family homes, a metal fabrication warehouse and a used-car dealership.

Months earlier, a neighbor complained that her teenage son was buying cannabis there. The complaint prompted a sheriff's department investigation.

Early on the morning on Jan. 11, Sheriff's deputies sawed through a large metal gate of the dispensary and walked inside to find a security guard standing in the entrance, hands up and his gun unloaded. Officers detained the guard for a short time and let him go. They confiscated thousands of dollars worth of marijuana, edibles and other paraphernalia, and seized almost $4,000 in cash.

Tom Seiver, a lieutenant at the Sheriff's Rancho San Diego Station, which patrols Spring Valley, Casa de Oro and other nearby communities, said it takes several deputies many hours to investigate and raid an illegal dispensary. The day of the raid on The Bakery, I counted 10 deputies, two county code compliance officers and a local fire department crew, which was on hand to cut open a safe and ATM.

After a raid, deputies have to bag, photograph and categorize everything seized, a painstaking process Seiver said takes at least eight hours.

"The amount of time it takes and energy it takes to do one of these investigations is actually quite substantial," he said. "It does take a sizable amount of manpower to complete."

A county spokeswoman said it takes multiple agencies and many man hours to raid a dispensary, but they said the county doesn't know how much the average raid costs.

A Spanish-speaking woman who lives nearby who didn't want to give her name for fear of backlash from the owner said she was glad it was gone.

"The dispensaries shouldn't be near children, and there are kids here," she said.

Shafik Obeid, an employee at the neighboring used-car dealership, said the dispensary didn't bother him. He said the owners spent months improving the property and building nice new facilities in place of what used to be a broken-down, empty building.

The Whack-a-Mole Approach Isn't Working

Illegal dispensaries can operate for months or years before they get shut down.

County code enforcement is not a proactive process. When community members complain to the county or the San Diego County Sheriff's Department about an illegal dispensary, the county and sheriff's department investigate and send out an official cease-and-desist letter. They can also fine the property and dispensary owners up to $50,000 a year.

Last year, the Sheriff's Department sent out 38 cease-and-desist letters countywide to illegal marijuana dispensaries, according to the department. Twenty-one of those letters were issued to addresses in Spring Valley.

Those cease-and-desist letters and fines, though, are largely ignored by dispensary owners. It typically takes a raid to shut them down. But even when an illegal dispensary is raided and shut down, it often opens back up in a new location or even in the same location a few days, or hours, later.

Seiver said running a cannabis business is so lucrative, and fines and punishment are so limited, that it makes financial sense for illegal dispensaries to reopen.

Rarely is anyone arrested during a raid. Seiver said people onsite during a raid are often low-level employees. Plus, Proposition 47, the ballot initiative passed by California voters in 2014, reduced certain drug felonies, including selling marijuana, to misdemeanors.

"So there's not a lot of jail time to be held over people who are illegally doing this," he said. "It's profitable. If you don't mind taking the misdemeanor or having an enforcement action done against you, then it's kind of just the cost of doing business for them."

Seiver said finding illegal dispensary owners is difficult; they obscure their identities through LLCs and limit contact with the businesses - which don't have paper trails because they're cash only. The county can and has gone after landlords who rent to dispensaries, but it's difficult to prove a landlord knew they were renting to an illegal dispensary.

After a raid, Seiver said, deputies investigate further and send some cases to the district attorney's office, which decides whether to pursue charges. In the last year, though, the DA's office has launched just one case against an illegal dispensary in Spring Valley.

Currently, there are 14 active investigations in Spring Valley and Casa de Oro, according to the county. Four illegal dispensaries have been raided in the area in 2018.

Two of those four dispensaries have already reopened.

Seiver said he worries about violent crimes near illegal dispensaries. In recent years there's been a handful of takeover-style robberies and a few shootings at unlicensed dispensaries in Spring Valley and Casa de Oro.

"We see a lot of violence occurring in and around dispensaries," he said. "Now whether or not if we had legal dispensaries and made it all above board, would [the violence] go down? I would suspect it would. But at this point, that's not what we have."

Inside An Illegal Dispensary

Jacob Saunders started selling his friends cannabis in high school. By 23, he'd already run an unlicensed dispensary in National City, worked as a unlicensed cannabis farmer in a rural East County and now works as an employee at an unlicensed dispensary in Casa de Oro.

When his son was born, Saunders said he no longer wanted to risk jail time by running illegal cannabis businesses. But he said he's fine working for someone else because the legal risk is much smaller. He was employed at an unlicensed dispensary when it got raided, and said he walked away without repercussions by pretending he was a patron.

At one point, Saunders said three unlicensed dispensaries were open in the same office building in Casa de Oro where he now works. The other two have since been raided and shut down, and he predicts his shop has another three months before it falls to the same fate.

Saunders said he looked into opening a legal, licensed dispensary in the city of San Diego, but was taken aback by permitting costs.

"Getting licensed, it's not a bad route to go," he said. "But they make it way too difficult. It's way too expensive... So you either have to be a big business-type person, or you have to act like a criminal. You have to hide."

As Saunders and I talked, a steady stream of customers entered the small dispensary where he works. Saunders said he predicts that about half of the customers don't even realize the shop is illegal.

"They just assume that it's legal, that we aren't doing anything wrong," he said. "The state says that it's legal, so they say it's legal inside their heads - that's what they're thinking."

Before licensed recreational dispensaries opened in San Diego on Jan. 1, the small dispensary where he works was pulling in $20,000 to $30,000 a month. They lost customers who wanted to buy legally, and he said now the shop now makes about $8,000 to $9,000 a month.

But he predicts business will go back up. Legal cannabis is more expensive and the prices are expected to continue to rise. Plus, he said, there's no way licensed shops can meet the demands of the region, so he said unlicensed shops will carry on so long legal shops are capped.

Saunders grew up in Spring Valley. He said he thinks the area is a hotbed for illegal dispensaries because real estate is more affordable and landowners are more lenient. He said the county should consider lifting the ban on cannabis businesses in unincorporated communities.

"Everyone here uses cannabis," he said. "It's just a regular part of their life. It's like drinking coffee... People out here our comfortable with it. The only people who aren't comfortable with it is the county."

The County Isn't Budging

County Supervisor Dianne Jacob, whose district includes Spring Valley and Casa de Oro, said she's aware of the concerns about illegal dispensaries in the unincorporated county, but thinks the ban will eventually be successfully enforced.

"My expectation is that the Sheriff's Department and county staff will continue to crack down on any fly-by-night operations as they pop up," she said in a written statement. "The county has enacted a ban on dispensaries and they have no place in Casa de Oro or any other unincorporated community."

Seiver said his deputies will continue enforcing the ban as best they can, but he knows they'll continue to reopen. He said the county's maximum $50,000 fine isn't nearly enough to stop illegal dispensary owners, and neither is the threat of misdemeanor charges.

"If you're more interested in making money than committing a misdemeanor, there's not much stopping the people from the prosecution angle," he said.

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San Diego County Can't Enforce Its Pot Dispensary Ban

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On one stretch of Troy Street in Spring Valley, four illegal marijuana dispensaries are open for business. Each uses green paint and the ubiquitous green cross to distinguish themselves. To better stand out, some use Google Maps' red teardrop icon, turned green and with the words "You are Here" in bold lettering.

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How neighboring states struggle when pot becomes legal

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Since recreational marijuana became legally available in Colorado last year, officials say more pot is illegally coming through the border of states like Nebraska and Oklahoma, draining state resources as the number of arrests keeps growing. Now, the attorneys general of those states filed a federal lawsuit asking the Supreme Court to declare Colorado's marijuana law unconstitutional.

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Group 6

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State of Surveillance: Police, Privacy and Technology

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"State of Surveillance" examines new technologies police departments are using to fight crime and the civil liberties concerns raised by these tools. Law enforcement agencies say that many of the technologies make it easier to solve and, in some cases, even prevent crime.

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Wed 17 Aug 2011 04.18 EDT First published on Wed 17 Aug 2011 04.18 EDT

've lost track of the number of people who've asked me to comment on David Cameron's insane plan to cripple Britain's internet in times of civil unrest by blocking Twitter and other services. In case you're wondering where I come down on it, well, let's say that it's not just a bad plan, it's also an ineffective one.

It's only been a week, after all, since Cameron's government concluded that the Digital Economy Act's web censorship plan wouldn't be implemented because downloaders would have no trouble getting around the blocks it would throw up. If people who want to download movies can evade Britain's censorwall, then so can people who want to organise riots. Duh.

But for me, the use of BlackBerrys in organising riots (if "organise" is the correct verb here) is just a sideshow. Though as a Canadian, I'm fascinated to see that our national technology success story, the businesslike BlackBerry, has now enduringly entered pop culture's lexicon as the tool of choice for disaffected and violent youth.

The real story for me is about surveillance, and not the mere use of CCTV footage to apprehend rioters after the fact. It's about the total failure of CCTV to deter people from committing crimes in the first place.

After all, that's how we were sold on CCTV - not mere forensics after the fact, but deterrence. And although study after study has concluded that CCTVs don't deter most crime (a famous San Francisco study showed that, at best, street crime shifted a few metres down the pavement when the CCTV went up), we've been told for years that we must all submit to being photographed all the time because it would keep the people around us from beating us, robbing us, burning our buildings and burglarising our homes.

A year before the Vancouver Winter Olympics, a reporter from a one of the local papers called me to ask whether I thought an aggressive plan to use CCTVs in the Gastown neighbourhood would help pacify the notorious high-crime heroin district. I said that the deterrence theory of CCTV relied on the idea that the deterred were making smart choices about their futures and would avoid crime if the consequences might catch up with them.

Then I recounted my last trip through Gastown, where the pavements were thronged with groaning and unconscious emaciated addicts, filthy and covered in weeping sores, and asked if those people could be reasonably characterised as "making smart choices about their future." I explained how my hire car had been broken into by a thief who'd left four perfect fingerprints on the passenger window, not caring whether the crime was associated with her or his biometrics forever.

Funnily enough, I was in Vancouver during the riots, which took place quite close to my home in London. I went through Gastown, which is utterly transformed into a pleasant shopping and university district. Simon Fraser University very carefully and cleverly slotted a new campus into the middle of Gastown, and hired only local people to work in it.

It was the very model of giving people a chance and a stake in their neighbourhood. And while there are still some sad and disfigured junkies here and there, you'd never know that Gastown was recently notorious as the most drug-blighted neighbourhood in the city that is the major port of ingress for heroin into the Americas.

I won't pretend to understand the forces that led my neighbours to take to the street and smash and burn and hurt each other. I don't think I know what "pure and simple criminality" is - presumably, it's some imperceptible pollen that drifts through society and alights on people, which is awfully convenient for government because "pure and simple" criminality has no cause and therefore no one to blame and nothing that can be done to prevent it.

But I do understand one thing: the deterrence theory of surveillance had no nexus with the motivations of the rioters. The theory of street crime as a rational act is bankrupt. Evidence-led CCTV deployment shows us where CCTV does work, and that's in situations where crimes are planned, not pulled off in the heat of the moment.

Parking garages, banks and jewelry stores, yes. And CCTVs make perfect sense as part of burglar alarms that switch on when the glass breaks (or buffer continuously, but only save the few seconds before a break-in). But the idea that we can all be made to behave if only we are watched closely enough all the time is bunkum. We behave ourselves because of our social contract, the collection of written and unwritten rules that bind us together by instilling us with internal surveillance in the form of conscience and aspiration. CCTVs everywhere are an invitation to walk away from the contract and our duty to one another, to become the lawlessness the CCTV is meant to prevent.

After the London riots, one thing is certain: anyone promoting CCTVs for deterrence is most likely selling something, probably CCTVs.
Topics

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Wed 17 Aug 2011 04.18 EDT First published on Wed 17 Aug 2011 04.18 EDT 've lost track of the number of people who've asked me to comment on David Cameron's insane plan to cripple Britain's internet in times of civil unrest by blocking Twitter and other services.

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Haroon Siddique

Images captured on a household surveillance camera could breach data-protection rules if the person filmed was on a public footpath when videoed, the European court of justice (ECJ) has ruled.

By clarifying European legislation, the judgment could have significant consequences for householders in the UK who use CCTV and keep or try to use the images, according to a legal expert.

The case related to a Czech man, František Ryneš, who installed a surveillance camera after he and his family were subjected to attacks by unknown individuals. The camera filmed areas including a public footpath and the entrance to the house opposite.

After someone fired a catapult at his home, breaking a window, Ryneš gave the recordings to the police, allowing them to identify two suspects, who were subsequently prosecuted.

However, one of the suspects challenged the legality of Ryneš recording and holding the images. The Czech office for the protection of personal data, found that although Ryneš had been trying to expose the perpetrators of a crime, he had infringed data-protection rules and issued him with a fine.

Ryneš appealed against the ruling and the supreme administrative court in the Czech Republic referred the case to the ECJ, asking whether European data-protection directive rules on the processing of personal data applied.

The court decided Ryneš was not liable for a fine because he had acted to help prosecute a criminal. However, the judgment suggested that if a crime had not been committed he would have breached European data regulations. The directive has an exception in the case of data processing carried out "by a natural person in the course of a purely personal or household activity", but the court found that the exception would not always apply if a camera is recording images of a public space such as a footpath.

The judges said: "The operation of a camera system, as a result of which a video recording of people is stored on a continuous recording device such as a hard disk drive, installed by an individual on his family home for the purposes of protecting the property, health and life of the homeowners, but which also monitors a public space, does not amount to the processing of data in the course of a purely personal or household activity, for the purposes of that provision."

This contradicts the application of the directive in the UK. Kathryn Wynn, senior associate at Pinsent Masons, said the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) had always taken the view that a camera on someone's house was outside of the law.

Householders who have surveillance cameras that capture public space would have to put up a notice informing people they are being filmed and make sure footage was not unduly retained, she said.

"The overarching concern is if you have two neighbours in dispute and one installs CCTV to capture their neighbour doing whatever they are complaining about, the other will run off to the ICO and complain about use of the film," she said. "The ICO will start to get pulled into domestic property disputes." However, she emphasised that the ruling made it clear that footage of criminal activity could still be used.

An ICO spokesman said: "We are just considering the ruling and what implications might have."
Topics

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Home surveillance CCTV images may breach data protection laws, ECJ rules

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Haroon Siddique Images captured on a household surveillance camera could breach data-protection rules if the person filmed was on a public footpath when videoed, the European court of justice (ECJ) has ruled. By clarifying European legislation, the judgment could have significant consequences for householders in the UK who use CCTV and keep or try to use the images, according to a legal expert.

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Group 5

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Sweden received more refugees per capita than any other European country last year, but many Swedes have started to question the country's immigration policies as crime rates and extremism are on the rise.

We are one of the least racist countries and we have great policies when it comes to giving welfare to immigrants and we don't make a difference between immigrants and residents or citizens even. So when it comes to all that I think we have been great, but we also need to understand that it's not an eternal order, that everything will work fine in Sweden, so when we reached a limit, we reached a limit, and this is our limit.

Ivar Arpi, columnist for the Svenska Dagbladet newspaper

Traditionally, Sweden has been viewed as welcoming to refugees.

In 1970, most immigrants came from other European nations such as Finland, Yugoslavia, Denmark and Greece. The 1980s saw people come from Iran, Chile, Lebanon and Turkey.

In the past 10 years, the numbers have taken off and in 2015, nearly 163,000 individuals applied for asylum in Sweden, a nation of 9.8 million people.

Syrians accounted for 51,000 of these asylum seekers, 41,000 came from Afghanistan, 20,000 from Iraq, along with thousands from Eritrea, Somalia and Iran. A combined 4,000 came from Albania and Kosovo.

Today, around 1.6 million people living in Sweden were born in another country - that is 16 percent of the population.

Many new arrivals are languishing in temporary housing, beggars and homeless live in the streets, and some neighbourhoods have seen an uptick in violence and extremism.

Concerns over security are growing and recent information about members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) living in Sweden and going to fight in Syria has received lots of media attention. According to Swedish police, around 300 people, many of them from the city of Gothenburg, are believed to have gone to Syria.

Then there's violent crime - in the past several months murders and assaults have taken place in asylum centres and in neighbourhoods with large numbers of immigrants.

The Sweden Democrats, the only party that has been advocating a more restrictive immigration policy, is now the third largest party in opinion polls, despite efforts by established political parties to isolate it.

So, what is behind the recent backlash against immigration in Sweden? Why is the tide turning for refugees in Sweden?

Al Jazeera went to the Swedish community of Ostra Goinge, an area that has received a number of new immigrants, to speak to citizens and politicians about the country's immigration policies.

Mayor Patric Aberg is a member of the Moderate Party, traditionally seen as a business-friendly party opposed to the ruling Social Democrats. He is calling for a "pause" to accepting applications for asylum. While he speaks of economic benefits he says there's a need to foster better "social integration".

"In Sweden right now I think we need a pause. In a very short period of time, since June last year, we have received more than 100,000 refugees. As you may have seen here in our community, we have very few apartments, we don't see a growth of jobs enough to employ all those coming ... We cannot in such a short period of time take care of so many people, our system cannot handle this," Aberg says.

"You look around the world and you hear reports about what's going on in Stockholm, Sweden, Europe and ask: will the people arriving here bring these problems with them? And I think this spread of fear is growing and we really need to work hard to ease their fear. It's not as unsafe as people think. But it's a feeling people have and we should take it seriously," he says.

Locals in Ostra Goinge have mixed feelings about refugees and migrants settling in Sweden.

"I guess they are all doing the best they can... but, well, I guess we have too many immigrants. It's been hard on the schools and our welfare system ... We have received so many, and it takes time for them to integrate ... We have had problems with break-ins here, I have had a break in. That's something I never experienced before," says citizen Maria Alm.

We also speak to the Swedish Interior Minister, Anders Ygeman, who is responsible for police and border controls; Marja Lemme, a political scientist at Stockholm University; and Ivar Arpi, a columnist for the Svenska Dagbladet newspaper.
You can talk to Al Jazeera too. Join our Twitter conversation as we talk to world leaders and alternative voices shaping our times. You can also share your views and keep up to date with our latest interviews on .

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Sweden's backlash: Why the tide is turning for refugees

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Sweden received more refugees per capita than any other European country last year, but many Swedes have started to question the country's immigration policies as crime rates and extremism are on the rise. We are one of the least racist countries and we have great policies when it comes to giving welfare to immigrants and we don't make a difference between immigrants and residents or citizens even.

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Group 5

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Placards by the group spoke of 3,000 homeless children in Ireland and the need to house local people first.

The protest began directly opposite the Holy Cross Mercy primary school before moving to Linden House, a former guesthouse which has hosted asylum seekers in the past.

A Garda from the nearby garda station was on duty at the entrance.

At the gates of the house local councillor Donal Grady addressed the gathering to rounds of applause, before handing in a petition, stating the concerns, signed by those protesting.

"Firstly to make clear we believe that people from war torn areas like Iraq and Syria should be accepted in our country," Mr Grady read before outlining concerns about the lack of consultation with the community.

"We have no knowledge of the vetting procedures these people have been through and they are being housed across the road from a local school," he said.

"The town had a large number of homeless and they should be looked after first," he continued.

Angry voices in the group which gathered outside Linden House referred to the fact some of the men who arrived on Friday were carrying iPhone sixes; and a lot of them smoked.

Others shouted about the Irish people paying for the accommodation.

"What fire officer signed off on safety for that house for 55 people," a mother of three who identified herself as Karen asked.

Pat Sullivan, who is involved with the jarveys in Killarney, asked why the Department of Justice had hidden the fact they were re-opening what was a vacant and derelict building.

Work took place at night under lights, two local women said. Most people said they objected to the lack of notice to anybody in Killarney by the Department of Justice.

"It's not healthy having fifty five men with nothing to do all day," another parent said.

Meanwhile three of the men who arrived at Linden House spoke briefly to the media.

Others remained inside but opened the door to where a Christmas tree stood to accept the letter of protest.

A 25-year-old man from Albania told this remoprters he had been in Ireland with four years, in Galway and the west waiting for his application to be processed.

"Give me work and I don't stay here," the man said. The accommodation in Killarney was "very good," he said, when asked about the standard of the building which had been vacant.

It was the first time he had come across such a protest and he asked not to be identified in photographs. A second man also from Albania said he had been in Ireland with two months.

A 48-year-old man from India said he was from the Punjab and was seeking asylum because of the war there, he had been housed first in Donegal and was in Ireland two months.

There was a brief angry confrontation between one woman and the Albanian man when she asked him where his family was; others remarked how the asylum seekers had "brilliant English" however, Cllr Grady moved the woman away.

Meanwhile, Mr Grady, who organised the protest, had previously called for the building, which is privately owned, to be leased by the council and used for local homeless persons.

Killarney already hosted 120 asylum seekers in two State owned properties, he explained.

"We have people coming in and we don't know the first thing about them. Killarney has its own problems. I can pick out 40 people in this town who won't have any warmth tonight," he said.

"We stress it is not that we don't wish refugees to be accommodated in Killarney but we believe it should be done under consultation with the local community and when we are in a position to help the nationwide plan after we have accommodate local families who have been either homeless or years on the housing list," Mr Grady said on Saturday.

The Department of Justice said it is expected that the applicants arriving in Killarney will be from different countries.

"There has been an increase in applications for international protection in Ireland. The latest figures (as of end November 2017) suggest that 2,620 persons applied for international protection this year compared with 1,982 in the same period last year."

There has been strong criticism of the Department of Justice by public representatives because of lack of consultation with locals or with the county council and other bodies.

Michael Healy-Rae received confirmation earlier this week of the arrival of the refugees. He said he has been inundated with calls from locals concerned about pressure on the housing lists and about the proximity to local primary schools.

"We have questions that need answering. Surely someone in the Department of Justice could have contacted the county council," Mr Healy-Rae said.

His brother Danny raised the matter in the Dáil.

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Protesters raise concerns over newly opened asylum centre in Killarney

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Placards by the group spoke of 3,000 homeless children in Ireland and the need to house local people first. The protest began directly opposite the Holy Cross Mercy primary school before moving to Linden House, a former guesthouse which has hosted asylum seekers in the past.

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Group 4

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The Netherlands' second city is increasingly divided on plans to replace affordable homes with more expensive properties

On Thursday, Rotterdam city council will vote on whether to replace 20,000 affordable homes with 36,000 properties for middle- and upper-income households.

The vote is the latest step in the city's focus on "improving" neighbourhoods, by combining gentrification with rules preventing some low-income households from moving into poorer neighbourhoods.

Rotterdam, the Netherlands' second city, is an increasingly divided one: while many neighbourhoods around the centre are gentrifying and the city is a rising star on the international tourist map, it is also home to some of the country's poorest neighbourhoods.

Late last year, a diverse grassroots movement emerged to oppose the city's housing plans. A petition calling for a referendum obtained more than 13,000 signatures, resulting in a vote on 30 November.

But the odds were stacked against the referendum. While organisers wanted a vote on the potential disappearance of the 20,000 affordable housing units, the question they posed to Rotterdammers wasn't clear. the vague nature of the question: "Are you in favour or against Rotterdam's housing vision?" was likely to have discouraged many people from voting, because they didn't fully understand what they were voting for.

The city also stipulated a 30% turnout to validate the referendum. Because those in favour of the housing vision could win based on a low turnout, there was little incentive for the yes campaign, including the city's government, to encourage people to vote.

In the end, 72% voted against the housing vision. However, only 17% of the electorate voted, well below the required 30%. The council vote this Thursday, 15 December, is expected to ignore the referendum and find in favour of adopting the housing plans as official policy.

The grassroots campaign offers several insights for those dealing with gentrification in cities around the world. Tenants' associations, while active in initiating campaigns, need to do more to engage with people in their communities. Participation levels in these associations are very low in Rotterdam and a primary objective for this movement is better organisation of residents, particularly tenants in social rented housing.

Debates often focus on the positive side of gentrification, but it is a political issue over who has access to a city

However, on the positive side, because opposition and resistance was focused on a city-wide issue, rather than a specific development or estate, gentrification and displacement became major topics of conversation across the city.

Rather than it being an abstract academic or political debate about social justice or a fair city, the referendum was about specific housing plans which will affect tens of thousands of Rotterdammers for years to come. As a result, the question: "Whose city is Rotterdam?" was discussed in homes, community centres and cafes.

It was also a genuinely bottom-up initiative, spearheaded by local tenants' associations. The campaign connected a diverse group of people who all had connections to the issue of gentrification.

This is important because the organisers of the referendum have announced that they will protest against every demolition project in the next 15 years. As the referendum created widespread attention, it will be easier to mobilise more people to stand with them.

Rotterdam's housing referendum was initiated by those who rarely feature in mainstream and professional debates about the future of the city. Too often, these focus exclusively on the positive side of gentrification, but it is a political issue over who has access to a city.

As urban scholars who investigate the human cost of gentrification, we believe it is essential to connect diverse voices into coalitions to fight for a city that is open and accessible for all.
Brian Doucet is a senior lecturer at Erasmus University College. Sign up for your free Guardian Housing network newsletter with news and analysis sent direct to you on the last Friday of the month. Follow us: @GuardianHousing Marguerite van den Berg is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Amsterdam. Gwen van Eijk is an assistant professor of criminology at Erasmus University Rotterdam. Topics

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Brian Doucet, Marguerite van den Berg, Gwen van Eijk

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Rotterdam's anti-gentrification movement must learn the lessons of its failed referendum

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The Netherlands' second city is increasingly divided on plans to replace affordable homes with more expensive properties On Thursday, Rotterdam city council will vote on whether to replace 20,000 affordable homes with 36,000 properties for middle- and upper-income households.

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As demographic data from the 2010 census starts to come in, it will show a startling trend - cities that have long been the African American capitals of the US are undergoing drastic change. On the south side of Chicago, in New York's Harlem, across New Orleans and in Washington DC, the black population is in rapid decline.

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Community Crime prevention and social media Article 2

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Community Crime prevention and social media Article 2

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Residents and police in Hackney are trialling the use of a new app designed to share information about crime and anti-social behaviour.

Between 300 to 400 residents in Hackney are registered users of the community app Trygve which is used and endorsed by the Metropolitan Police.

Residents log incidents on the app and give descriptions of suspects and other relevant information to help the police in their investigations. Users can share and receive local incident information in real time and it allows people to collaborate by commenting on events or collaborate on fighting crime together. Police in London use the app to post news of arrests, warn residents of repeating crimes in the area and appeal to the public for information.

The app was also trialled in Enfield and Southwark in November last year but has been found to be most effective in Hackney.

According to Trygve, the app has helped tackle drug dealing in the borough. Residents have logged the registrations of cars, mopeds and bikes believed to be involved in drug dealing. The police then used the information to send notices to the vehicle owners and some were visited by the police.

Trygve said that residents were left frustrated when they tried to report crimes by phoning 101 but were left on hold and their concerns were not resolved. The app has been seen as a way of ensuring that residents have a platform to report all criminal concerns and help the police to build evidence.

This new digital approach to tackling crime allows for the Safer Neighbourhoods Team to engage with the local community to tackle issues of anti-social behaviour.

The Met Police support the use of the app and police officers are encouraged to use it in their local policing. Sergeant Bill Connor, of the Territorial Policing branch of the Met , said: "In supporting our national Neighbourhood Watch, we are also supporting the systems they use, including Trygve."

In June 2017, the crime rate in Hackney was higher than average for the Metropolitan Police force area and in October 2017, 241 crimes were reported in Hackney Central alone. In Hackney Downs, Anti-social behaviour counted for 23% of the overall crime rate in October and November with 412 cases being reported to the police.

Trygve started working with the Metropolitan Police in January this year to improve engagement between police officers and residents. Sheona Urquhart, the UK manager for Trygve, told EastLondonLines: "We've worked alongside the local Met Police Safer Neighbourhoods teams in various Hackney wards. The Hackney council community safety department has also become involved, through their work with local police."

The app, launched in Sweden in 2015, was introduced in the UK last June. It also provides users with a personal safety alarm that can notify the nearby public if they need immediate assistance; it can be triggered manually if the user feels unsafe.

One Hackney resident who wanted to remain anonymous told ELL: "Being a part of Trygve has allowed me to get to know my neighbours and local police much better and I feel a part of something bigger.

"It's nice to know that other people in the community feel the same way as I do regarding certain issues. It's also reassuring that we can voice these concerns to local police and get a response."

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'Neighbourhood Watch' app used by Hackney residents to tackle crime | Eastlondonlines

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Residents and police in Hackney are trialling the use of a new app designed to share information about crime and anti-social behaviour. Between 300 to 400 residents in Hackney are registered users of the community app Trygve which is used and endorsed by the Metropolitan Police.

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Community Crime prevention and social media Article 1

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Community Crime prevention and social media Article 1

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It's an old idea made new: neighbourhood watch groups taking to Facebook and other social media platforms to keep a watchful eye on goings-on in their areas.

Such groups have footholds across Winnipeg's digital map, sprouting up lately in areas including Windsor Park, River Heights and Wolseley, allowing neighbours to share posts advising others of crime, security issues or suspicious interlopers on their streets.

But a University of Manitoba criminologist warns that if they're not done properly, the groups can harm, not help, the neighbourhoods they represent.

Frank Cormier spoke to host Trevor Dineen on CBC Manitoba's Up to Speed on Friday.

The interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
How helpful are Facebook neighbourhood watch groups when it comes to reducing crime?

They can be, in theory, quite helpful. Criminologists, we look at something we call social disorganization in neighbourhoods, and that's something that often results in a situation where neighbours don't know each other very well.

So in neighbourhoods, for example, that have high in-and-out migration - a lot of turnover of the people who live there - people might not know their neighbours, they might not speak to their neighbours, and so they remain unaware of things that are happening.

They don't recognize when there is, perhaps, a strange or suspicious individual in the neighbourhood, and therefore they're less likely to notice when things are, you know, going wrong in the neighbourhood, whereas if they were in communication with each other, they would be more aware and they perhaps could take steps to try to address the problem.
What are the differences between those real-life programs and these Facebook groups?
The Neighbourhood Watch program has been around for, you know, 50 years now, I think, in the United States and Canada and other parts of the world, so it's a very similar idea in that it's a network whereby neighbours stay in touch with each other, keep each other apprised of issues in the community, sort of look out for each other.

So using Facebook or other social media, it's just really an extension of something that's been around for a while.

One of the potential dangers, though, with new technology - there's always that double-edged sword - is that there have been examples where these Facebook groups have actually started to divide neighbourhoods more than they have brought them together.
How so?
One problem is that very often, there's not sort of a full inclusivity where people take great steps to ensure that everyone in whatever the designated neighbourhood is ... is invited and everyone is really encouraged to take part.

There are cases where you might have a small sub-group in the community, people that already know each other - you know, they're like-minded people - and they start a group and it becomes exclusive to them, rather than inclusive.

And there have been cases where we end up with, if I can use a popular culture reference, sort of a Mean Girls situation, where there's almost a clique that sort of runs the group and the Facebook group becomes more of a "burn book," so to speak, for gossip and attacking other people than it becomes a uniting community resource.
Some posts in these groups include photos or descriptions of people accused of crimes. What are the dangers of sharing these kinds of posts?
There's a number of dangers inherent there. Sharing information can be a good thing. But the problem, and I think we've all observed this, [is] online behaviour can often differ quite severely from our normal in-person social behaviour, and ... people might feel emboldened to make accusations or attacks on people electronically that they wouldn't otherwise.

There have been cases, mostly in the United States to this point, where people were taking photographs of people or making videos of them and posting those to the site and describing them as being suspicious or imputing some, you know, nasty motives to them when these people were perfectly innocent of anything.

And that's when we start getting into dangers of invasion of privacy and possible liability issues. There's civil liability, where they could be found to be libelous ... where you defame someone's character incorrectly, or even gets into criminal matters such as harassment or making threats.
What advice would you give to people who are moderating these Facebook groups to make sure they don't get out of hand?
That is the key, is that there has to be an active moderator who will screen posts and comments people make, and there should be a clear list of rules.

A list of rules to start with, to say we will not, you know, accept posts that are threatening or harassing, etc., etc., and then somebody really does have to screen and moderate those and remove any comments that are moving into more negative territory.

Also, as I mentioned before, inclusivity is the really important part. There has to be a real effort made to get the entire neighbourhood involved in it and included in it, again, to make sure that you're bringing people together rather than fostering anger and resentment and thereby driving people further apart.
Can these Facebook groups work harmoniously with traditional police neighbourhood watch programs?
That's an excellent suggestion that I would make, is that neighbourhoods or groups that are thinking of starting this sort of thing should first consult with the local police. Here in Winnipeg, there still are a number of neighbourhoods that still have fully functioning neighbourhood watch programs.

The police do keep in fairly close contact with those groups and will offer support and advice and can designate a liaison person, so if there are concerns, rather than sort of venting those and perhaps moving into vigilantism, there's one contact person who can speak with the police and the police can advise and assist as necessary.

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Is your neighbourhood Facebook group keeping people safe or just becoming a 'Burn Book?' | CBC News

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It's an old idea made new: neighbourhood watch groups taking to Facebook and other social media platforms to keep a watchful eye on goings-on in their areas. Such groups have footholds across Winnipeg's digital map, sprouting up lately in areas including Windsor Park, River Heights and Wolseley, allowing neighbours to share posts advising others of crime, security issues or suspicious interlopers on their streets.

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A SENIOR detective has urged people in Oxfordshire be vigilant after figures revealed Oxfordshire's soaring burglary rate.

Chief superintendent Richard List, who described burglary as psychologically and financially traumatic, said the public, like the police, have a vital role to play in reducing the amount of the crime.

His comments follow recent revelations in the Oxford Mail about the sharp rise in the county's burglary rate - including that November had the second highest number of burglaries over the past three years with a total of 361 reports.

The only other month since December 2014 to see more reports of burglaries to police was in June this year, which experienced a peak of 373 reports.

In December 2016 there were 281 burglaries, while December 2015 saw 226, and December 2014, saw 206 burglaries.

Ch Supt List said: "We are only too aware of the serious impact that having your home broken into has on people in the Thames Valley. It is traumatic both psychologically and financially.

"Over recent months, like other forces across the country, we have been seeing an increase in burglaries. There are a number of reasons for this increase but it's important that we all do everything we possibly can to prevent burglaries being committed in the first place.

"We are taking every action possible to tackle this by bringing offenders to justice, and also disrupting those who see fit to carry out these crimes.

"We would ask the public to think about what measures they can take to secure their homes."

The number of burglaries in April this year was 300. The figures obtained by the Oxford Mail go back to December 2014 and show no instances of burglaries reaching this number before then.

Since April, the monthly figures only fell below 300 on one occasion in September, when there were 297 reported burglaries.

The figures did not include December.

Ch Supt List offered a variety of preventative measures in which homeowners could help protect their properties, and those of their neighbours, against burglary.

He continued: "Measures to protect homes could include securing doors and windows, having lights on timers and also not advertising on social media if you are going away for a holiday.

"By taking just a few simple measures, particularly at this time of year, you can significantly reduce your risk of being a victim of burglary.

"Additionally, we would ask members of the community to be vigilant and keep an eye on their neighbours' properties if they are unoccupied and report any suspicious behaviour by calling 101 or speaking to one of the neighbourhood policing teams."

Across the Thames Valley, there has been a 25 per cent rise in burglary in the past six months.

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'Be vigilant and watch your neighbour': Advice as burglary levels soar

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A SENIOR detective has urged people in Oxfordshire be vigilant after figures revealed Oxfordshire's soaring burglary rate. Chief superintendent Richard List, who described burglary as psychologically and financially traumatic, said the public, like the police, have a vital role to play in reducing the amount of the crime.

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Home Burglary Prevention Tips  (Houston Police Department, HPD Video Production)

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Uploaded by Houston Police on 2010-05-27.

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Community Crime prevention and social media Doc

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Community Crime prevention and social media Doc

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Community Safety and Crime Prevention Initiatives at the City of Stirling in 2016

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This video provides an overview of the services provided by the City of Stirling's Community Safety team, and how community safety and crime prevention initiatives are implemented at the City of Stirling.

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Noisy neighbours, barking dogs and traffic now perceived as environmental problem on a level with air pollution, survey finds

People are becoming increasingly intolerant of loud music, barking dogs, noisy neighbours, road traffic and aircraft noise, a major government survey has found.

According to a government survey of attitudes conducted once a decade, noise has risen from ninth to fourth since 2000 in the league table of perceived local environmental problems and is now on a level with air pollution and only behind dog fouling, litter and the loss of green belt land.

Research by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs found that 48% of the 2,750 people surveyed in England and Wales felt that their home life was being spoilt by noise, with one in five saying it kept them awake at night.

But while the survey found little change in the proportion of people saying they are affected of unwelcome noise, 11-17% more people said they were significantly upset by it.

"There has been a strongly statistically significant increase in the proportion of respondents who report being bothered, annoyed or disturbed to some extent by road traffic, neighbours , aircraft and building ... despite no material increase in the proportion of the population hearing noise from these four sources," said the report.

The survey also found 10-16% fewer people saying they were not at all adversely affected by noise. "This suggests that the population may be less tolerant of noise than in 2000," said the report.

Neighbour noise and road traffic continue to be the two biggest noise problems, aircraft noise was found to be the fastest growing source of irritation, with nearly three quarters of respondents reporting hearing it and 13% giving 'moderate', 'very' or 'extreme' ratings for being bothered, annoyed or disturbed.

John Stewart, chair of HACAN, the group which campaigns for noise reduction around Heathrow, said the airport has seen a five-fold increase in complaints about noise over the past year. "The results [of the survey] are revealing. This dramatic increase in the numbers disturbed by aircraft took place during a decade when planes were becoming a little quieter. It can only be accounted for by the rise in the number of aircraft using UK airports."

However, a spokeswoman for Heathrow airport said a large number of the complaints came from a single individual, with the top 10 complainants making almost 2,000 complaints per person.

Nearly 200,000 noise complaints were made to local councils in 2012 but, says the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, fewer than 20 people were fined.

Older, retired people were found to be less likely than middle-aged adults to report negatively about the amount of noise in their local environment.

"Noise is an inevitable consequence of a mature and vibrant society. With the increase in population over the past decade in the UK and the development of infrastructure to accommodate that increase, it follows that some noise must continue to occur, indeed as an inevitable consequence. However, the results suggest that the population may be less tolerant of noise than in 2000," the report concluded.
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Keep calm and carry on: Brits getting intolerant of noise pollution

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Noisy neighbours, barking dogs and traffic now perceived as environmental problem on a level with air pollution, survey finds People are becoming increasingly intolerant of loud music, barking dogs, noisy neighbours, road traffic and aircraft noise, a major government survey has found.

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Dealing with Anti-Social Behaviour (full film)

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Charnwood Neighbourhood Housing - Dealing with Anti-Social Behaviour