Civic courage
Civic courage concerns all people who live and wish to continue living in a peaceful and democratic society.
Everyone can demonstrate civic courage in everyday life: at home, at school, at work, walking down the street. It doesn’t require extraordinary bravery or above-average strength; instead, it’s important to stay calm and keep a cool head.
Those who demonstrate civic courage intentionally expose themselves to danger in order to maintain order and peace. They stay alert to what is happening and intervene as soon as they notice someone being treated unfairly, without worrying about exposing themselves to a certain risk. If they see two people arguing, they do not look away. The danger to which one is exposed by demonstrating civic courage generally does not endanger one’s own life.
Since spring 2018, the inter-cantonal service of Swiss Crime Prevention, in collaboration with the cantonal police forces and the police forces of the largest Swiss cities, has launched the project "How to demonstrate civic courage? The Police inform".
Goals
The project pursues two objectives:
- to provide citizens with information on how they can and should demonstrate civic courage in certain situations
- to present the police as a reliable, modern, and citizen-oriented organization to which people can turn with their questions and doubts
All police forces participating in the project provide a person who addresses citizens directly in a short video message on a specific topic, instructing them on how to demonstrate civic courage – whether in cases of bullying, the use of drones, or situations where fights break out, etc.
The video messages are regularly disseminated via social media and are also available on the trilingual website coraggiocivile.ch.
Civic courage in case of a road accident
When witnessing a road accident, it is important to stay calm and proceed step by step. The Police of the City of Lugano, in collaboration with Swiss Crime Prevention, has produced a short video in which Officer Alberto Tiberio provides information, guiding and assisting citizens in dealing with the situation.
Video
The English version of this page was created with the aid of automatic translation tools and may contain errors and omissions.
The original version is the page in Italian.