Searching for shadowland

Dusseldorf / DPA

An empty, dimly lit railway station somewhere out in the suburbs, in the middle of the night. Safe or not? “It’s a classic example of a place that can make people feel anxious,” says Udo Diederich, who spent 41 years in the German police.
Despite being retired he’s still keen to help people.
The 61-year-old is now working with Anton Borries, a student at the University of Dusseldorf, to develop an app aimed at creating safer communities. “For my finals I wanted to develop something that also had a practical use,” says Borries.
Users will be able tell the app with the touch of a button which public spaces make them wary, the pair say.
The smartphone records the locations and sends them to a central data bank with any other personal data the user might want to add.
Then the locations are analysed together with those submitted by other users and at the end of each month, municipalities can get a summary of the feedback. The app designers hope they can charge for the service. Both think that public officials don’t realize they have shadowlands in their midst.
Getting live reports from people who have no choice but to walk the mean streets might wake them up.
Diederich, who came up with the idea, is also thinking of how the results can be shown on a map – he wants to colour in the places people prefer to avoid. “That way, towns could recognize black spots more easily and then get rid of them,” he says.
Andreas Wohlan of a state Local Authorities Confederation says town officials could respond by “installing extra lighting or increasing the presence of police officers.”
The app’s developers want local councils to be able to see if they are overlooking unsafe places, where they’re going wrong and where they can improve.
Citizens like the idea, but the app may be less welcome with the authorities – they might after all be landed with huge bills if they take up its advice. That’s probably a reason why many communities aren’t taking part in the test phase, says Diederich.
Only one town in the region, Willich, has so far agreed to participate. But there’s also been criticism for other reasons.
Borwin Bandelow, an expert on panic at the University of Goettingen, says some areas could end up getting a negative image “even though there have been no crimes recorded there. That can be an enormous disadvantage for shops there.”
He advises authorities to examine actual crime statistics more closely and develop measures to combat clusters of delinquency, rather than relying on the subjective feelings of pedestrians.
“Otherwise areas will be marked out as dangerous, even when they’re not,” he says. Diederich doesn’t know if his app will be successful, but he wants to try it anyway: “It’s a way of taking responsibility for society.”