Tamara Ribbers
We believe that communication and media is an essential tool which can contribute to make the neighborhood of Bouwlust safer. For example, we visited a police station located nearby Bouwlust and interviewed one of police officers regarding surroundings, accomplishments and improvements. One of their main interface they use between police and citizens is “Burgernet” in Dutch or civil network in English which was originally established in 1993 by a police officer from Ridderkerk nearby Rotterdam.
Burgernet is an online website where citizens can register their name and home address. By using this, it is possible to keep neighborhood safe by informing citizens with latest news if something goes wrong in neighborhood for example, murder, car accident, missing person, fire and etc. Burgernet can give an emergency call to citizens they can even choose who will actually receive this call by dividing area. When we look at Burgernet closely, we realized that this tool is evolving since it emerged. In the beginning, the only resource they could use was a website. When citizens register there, they could receive a message. After few years, SMS was introduced and it became easier for police to inform citizens. Finally after the launch of smartphones, social media have come out and now police is using Twitter as well as Burgernet App.
Not only police uses Burgernet in order to keep neighborhood safe but also WhatsApp. WhatsApp is a social media where people can chat, call via the internet. In Bouwlust, there are many small group chats divided by WhatsApp. In this way, citizens can communicate each other if they notice something normally regarding criminal activities. Likewise you can see that Police managed to adapt innovation policy time to time because they kept increasing standardization of their tool by incorporating new technology. Those tools help in order to establish stable rhythm in the neighborhood because people interact more frequently due to easy way of communication.