Urban Insecurity and its Effects: Perception of the Youth

Abstract

Among basic human rights, we recognize security as a condition that currently awakens social, institutional and personal preoccupation owing to its deterioration. The objective of this research is to explore the youths’ standing before urban security, In this sense work was carried out with adults to find out what the social representations were regarding the youths’ role in criminal activities; and with youths regarding the standing of crime victims, the effects of the said crimes and the way the victims faced them, after carrying out the urban Insecurity survey (CIu for its spanish acronym). This data was completed with the results from their personal and social construction of fear before the probability of their becoming a victim, as experienced by youths from a san Luis school located in the city’s nearby suburbs. samples were taken from male and female adults and youths, the latter high school and college students, who were compared with peers from different districts at the last stage of the research. The conclusions reached are associated to the institutions’ role, the mass media’s incidence in the proliferation of such a sense of urban insecurity shown by those who have not been victims of any crime; the women’s higher vulnerability in comparison to their male peers; and the necessary participation of the state to acknowledge the youths as a potentially vulnerable group before crime.