A microscale study on perception of dangerous places. The case of Gniezno, Poland

Abstract

Research on the sense of security in Polish crime geography has been developed since the end of the 20th century. The studies conducted focus primarily on the overall assessment of a city or town, or its selected parts, using survey questionnaires. This study is an attempt to address the issue of the sense of security and, in particular, perception of dangerous places, at a microscale level. The focus of the paper is, first, to identify dangerous places in Gniezno using a survey and second, to analyse them using complementary methods: desk research, interviews with police officers, field inventory and photographic documentation. The research was carried out in the years 2017–2019. The sense of security, both regarding the city as a whole and selected urban spaces, was higher during the day. The places most frequently indicated by the respondents as dangerous, regardless of the time of day, were: Tajwan, Cierpięgi street, the Old Town and parks. Difficult past and the image of the place play a crucial role in the safety perception.

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“…Early research on dangerous places focused on a typological description of the place and the feeling of fear it generated [11]; defensible space, social control and the way in which the architectural design of places and streets influenced the occurrence of crime [12], [13]. Based on the emphasis on place at the neighborhood or residential scale, several studies, such as the one carried out in [14]. In Poland, have focused on the spatial distribution of fear in the population and the places where it develops.…”