Problem or challenge

Caracas in Venezuela tops the list of murder capitals in the world with 130 murders per 100,000 people in 2006, the latest year for which statistics are available. The number has been steadily rising in the past decade due to increased incidents of uncontrolled gang wars. Killings tend to spike during weekends and around paydays in the middle and end of the month, when robberies are also common, according to criminologists. The large majority of incidents involve boys and men ages 15 to 25.  Some analysts have attributed the high crime rate to the politicization and resource limitations of the police system as well as graver abuse by the police has gone unchecked, some crime analysts note. In 2005, the attorney general's office said it was investigating 5,520 presumed executions by the police between 2000 and 2005, involving 6,127 victims. Of the police officials implicated, prosecutors have filed charges against 517, and fewer than 100 had been convicted, according to Human Rights Watch.  Some local radio stations have set up systems to receive SMS hotlines from their audience and receive hundreds of SMS messages on various topics including crime.    

Community to be Served

Petare  is a city in Metro Caracas with a population of 370,000. Poverty dominates Petare, where most of the population lives in shanty towns called "barrios". Tens of thousands of people live on the side of mountains, without any permanent access to water and electricity, roads and a decent sewage system. They are permanently tormented by the highest levels of crime and violence in the world. Most of them are immigrants either from other parts of the country or from neighboring countries.  Gun fights often occur in Petare's winding narrow streets as street gangs fight for territory and small-time drug deals. Heavily armed police patrol Petare for trouble every night. However, the police are understaffed and many corners of the barrio where gang members are equipped with guns and grenades are considered no-go areas even for the police.    CiviRep will be initially deployed in Petare, upon the success of which, it will be extended to cover the whole capital of Caracas which has a total population of 4.9 million.  

Solution Details and Impact

Using the CiviRep platform, citizens would be able to report a crime via SMS. By using a simple semantic and number, citizens will decide to which level they want to report the crime.

• Level 1 Neighborhood level: Relaying SMS messages to local neighborhood peacekeeping volunteers for rapid neighborhood level responses.
• Level 2 City or National Level: Relaying SMS messages for response at the city level and aggregating information on maps and other reports for inter-agency planning purposes at the city or national level.
• Level 3 International Level: Providing web-based reports and maps to allow international observers to collaborate on transnational solutions

 At the CiviRep server, these SMS will be received to report the crime reports to the police. The crime data will be stored in the information database of CiviRep. This information will be plotted on a visual map which will be viewable by citizens, local authorities and international organizations. Information will thus be collected real time will be indicative of the current law and order situation and will be utilized to trigger action at the local and international level.  With CiviRep, our vision is to provide justice to the citizens of Caracas and provide them with a means to report criminal incidents. They will have an option of requesting immediate help from local organizations in case of severe criminal incidents in addition to reporting crime for visibility to higher authorities. The national and international organizations will have the latest, authentic and transparent information about the crimes occurring in the city of Caracas.  

In the future, we hope to build a feedback mechanism through which the police can update the status of crime on the CiviRep website thereby providing real time information about the status of crime. This would enable CiviRep to provide ‘turn-around' times for each crime to interested parties monitoring the state of affairs in Caracas.