Bro is an urban area located in Upplands-Bro municipality, Stockholm County. In 2020, the Stockholm Police conducted a security survey for all municipalities included in the Stockholm police region. The results of the survey for Upplands-Bro municipality show that many residents feel insecure about the risk of being exposed to crime. The residents experience that the feeling of insecurity is at its highest in Bro. The thesis is limited to investigating this in nine public spaces in central Bro. The purpose is to investigate whether previously crime-prone public spaces in built-up environments can evoke experiences of insecurity in people, despite their unawareness that they are old crime scenes. If people experience insecurity, the thesis aims to investigate which crime prevention measures can be applied in the design of public spaces to increase their security experiences there. In the essay, the student is named as the "investigator".

The approach to the thesis applies several different methods. A safety survey is the thesis' main method, while a safety walk (method combination) is the secondary one. Initially, site analyzes are used as feasibility studies to carry out several site visits in the nine public spaces. (1) The first site visit is made to get to know the existing conditions of the sites and to create an overall picture. At the same time, the places are photographed in daylight. (2) Site visit no. 2 is made to photograph the sites in the evening darkness. (3) During the third site visit, the investigator conducts a safety walk, where a focus group of eight members (excluding the investigator) consisting of residents in Bro, is invited for interviews in the field. The intention with this is to take part in their experiences if the places feel unsafe and if there is a need for crime prevention measures to achieve increased security. (4) Site visit no. 4 is made to study in detail the spatial properties of the sites on the basis that the focus group has identified “insecurity problems” that are most in need of crime prevention measures for increased security. The crime prevention measures in the thesis include: (1) increased care of the outdoor environment, cutting shrubs and trees, (2) repairing broken materials, repainting, (3) removal of damage, graffiti and debris, (4) increased lighting, (5) to open up the site, remove dark spaces/hiding places, (6) increase the view of the site from buildings or through direct human supervision, (7) to add electrical safety systems such as camera surveillance/alarm/gate code or fences around the site. A safety survey is conducted with the intention of reaching out to all residents in the urban area of Bro. The survey mainly asks questions about: (1) how they experience security at the nine sites and (2) whether the sites need to be changed for increased security there, which creates a need for crime prevention measures. The questionnaire is sent out in collaboration with Upplands-Bro municipality's Street / Park / Traffic department and 247 locals answer the questionnaire. However, the response rate does not correspond to all of Bros' urban residents, which the investigator is aware of. To include all residents, the investigator has not requested biological sex or age in all methods. Thus, the investigator has disregarded what a possible distribution of answers between women and men or different age groups can look like.

The answers from the safety walk and the survey are analyzed through qualitative content analysis. The method results are made visible in the form of photographs and diagrams with accompanying descriptive text about the results with the highest percentage that are perceived to be most prominent. The results are then visualized in an insecurity map, a form of heat map. The insecurity map is compared with the crime scene map to see if there is a connection between “unsafe places” and “previous crime scenes” in a combined map. In the analysis, the survey results are interpreted through the thesis' theoretical perspective and validated against the outcome of the safety walk. Based on the analysis, the investigator reads out what crime prevention measures residents point out to achieve increased security in the "unsafe places". Then the results are discussed and how they fulfill the purpose of the essay and answer the problem formulation and the questions. Finally, conclusions and recommendations for future studies are presented.