In its meeting on September 29, 2006, the Ministerial Committee on Violence, chaired by Minister Dicter, approved the implementation of the "City without Violence" project which was developed in the southern city of Eilat as a national pilot project. Its development started due to the increase in violence throughout the country and the need in a system-wide battle against the phenomenon, aimed at changing the social climate and behavioral norms in the Israel society.
The 'City without Violence' project is an innovative working model designed to cope with all types of violence on a city-wide level. The program started in March 2007 in 10 different cities: Tveria, Nazereth Elite, Acco, Hadera, Netanya, Rahat, Ma'aleh Adumim, Ashkelon, Ramleh and Bat-Yam. The project will be expanded to other cities based on criteria to be determined by the ministerial committee.
Violence in Eilat is down 20%-50%
The pilot program in Eilat was implemented after the establishment of a steering committee headed by the Director General of the National Insurance Institute of Israel, Dr. Yigal Ben Shalom. The steering committee's members included representatives of Ministries working towards overcoming violence such as the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Social Affairs and the Ministry of Health; along with representatives of the main foundations partnering and supporting the project. In addition, it was decided to establish a national professional staff which will assist the cities in implementing the project as well as coordinating between the national and municipal bodies.
Project goals
To confront all types of violence on a city-wide level, including domestic violence, road violence, adult violence, school violence and criminal violence while identifying common denominators, forming solutions, working in conjunction with other sectors and uniting all of the municipal systems (education, welfare, heath and police) towards the battle against violence.
Project highlights:
- The project offers tailor made tools to cope with violence in every city interested in the project
- The project focuses on every kind and aspect of violence
- The project is based on the assumption that violence is linked to a much larger social aspect and is designed to create changes in the general social climate as opposed to specific occurrences of violence
- The project identifies common denominators between different types of violence
- The project offers a study model for learning the unique characters of the city which are risk factors when it comes to violence
- The project defines areas of action while differentiating between aspects linked directly to violence and aspects that have an indirect influence on violence
- The project offers activities to be run in every area of action in order to bring to the required change in every field
- The project focuses on creating a city-wide infrastructure which will prevent the progression of violence in the city and will be able to effectively cope with the existing violent occurrences.
- The activities within the project will be derived from a thorough testing and learning process of the unique characteristics of the city and its needs.
Vision
To create a city-wide atmosphere focusing on values of mutual respect, tolerance, communication, negotiation and protecting human rights, all while condemning legal offence, violation of human rights and the use of non-legitimate power of any kind.
Method
Forming a perennial work plan dealing with violence by a joint committee consisting of representatives from different Israeli sectors and professional experts in different forms of violence. During the formation of the plan, the phenomenon of violence in Israel will be mapped out, risk factors will be located and methods of location, treatment, diagnosis, treatment and prevention will be defined. The interdisciplinary work plan will include all the elements that can contribute to the minimization of violence which include educational services, enforcement services, welfare services and recreation services.
Development stages in the “City without Violence” model
Defining the problem: Mapping out the problems with which the program is designed to deal with, while identifying common risk factors and solutions.
Universal types of violence
Universal violence is the type of violence which occurs in every society and does not specifically characterize a specific area or sector. These types of violence are identified by the location of the occurrence (at home, on the road, in school, in a public area), by the relation between the attacker and the victim (strangers, family, work related) and by the behavior (physical violence, verbal violence, sexual violence, psychological violence, economic violence etc.).
The “City without Violence” project is designed to minimize every form of violence in the city, first by identifying the existing types of violence and then confronting them.
Particular violence
The particular violence in a city is identified by the work of special teams. The basic assumption is that every city has its own characteristics of violence which creates particular violent behaviors in that city.
Methodology
In order to implement the program, the following work stages are required:
- Establishment of an organization committee: includes a local steering committee in every city chaired by the mayor, professional committees for testing and planning, and a professional staff for management.
- City diagnosis: process of identifying and learning the unique characteristics of the city and the violence within it, learning the risk factors which can be a common denominator between all of the violent occurrences in the city, and studying the statistics and problematic areas in the city.
- Planning the city project: forming a plan based on the project's methodology which obliges a reference to the risk factors and an infrastructure for creating a change. Every activity and project in the planning will derive from a need, difficulty or problem raised during the city diagnosis.
- Program implementation: the program will be implemented in stages and will be built phase by phase.
- Evaluation: The program will be evaluated on a number of levels and subjects.
Research
The "City without Violence" program is implemented in 11 cities nationwide and is a model program that will be accompanied by a professional research that will examine its compatibility to other sectors and cities in Israel. If the program is proven to be suitable for other areas, and after minor tweaking, the goal is to transform it to a national program that will be implemented in every city throughout Israel.
In addition to evaluating the success of the program to minimize the violence within the city, the research will also measure the public's attitude towards violence, their exposure to it (both direct and indirect) and their personal sense of security. The research will also evaluate issues that have a connection to and an affect on violence, such as boredom and parental authority, and will also inspect the implementation of the program and its capability to reach its goals.