Crime prevention


Crime prevention refers to strategies and measures that seek to reduce the risk of crime occurring by intervening before a crime has been committed. It encompasses many approaches, including developmental, situational, community-based and criminal-justice interventions, to address risk factors at individual, family, community and societal levels. These strategies aim to deter potential offenders, reduce opportunities for offending and mitigate the fear of crime among the public, and are used by many governments in their efforts to reduce crime, enforce the law, maintain criminal justice and uphold overall stability.

Studies

s, commissions and research bodies such as the World Health Organization, the United Nations, the United States National Research Council and the UK Audit Commission have analyzed their and others' research on what lowers the rates of interpersonal crime. They agree that governments must go beyond law enforcement and criminal justice to tackle the risk factors that cause crime because it is more cost-effective and leads to greater social benefits than the standard ways of responding to crime. Multiple opinion polls also confirm public support for investment in prevention. Criminology Professor uses these materials in his 2006 book to propose specific measures to reduce crime as well as propose a crime bill.
The World Health Organization Guide complements the World Report on Violence and Health and the 2003 World Health Assembly Resolution 56-24 for governments to implement nine recommendations, which were to:
  1. Create, implement and monitor a national action plan for violence prevention.
  2. Enhance capacity for collecting data on violence.
  3. Define priorities for, and support research on, the causes, consequences, costs and prevention of violence.
  4. Promote primary prevention responses.
  5. Strengthen responses for victims of violence.
  6. Integrate violence prevention into social and educational policies and thereby promote gender and social equality.
  7. Increase collaboration and exchange of information on violence prevention.
  8. Promote and monitor adherence to international treaties, laws and other mechanisms to protect human rights.
  9. Seek practical, internationally agreed responses to the global drugs and global arms trade.
The commissions agree on the role of municipalities because they are best able to organize the strategies to tackle the risk factors that cause crime. The European Forum for Urban Security and the United States Conference of Mayors have stressed that municipalities must target the programs to meet the needs of youth at risk and women who are vulnerable to violence.
To succeed, they need to establish a coalition of key agencies such as schools, job creation, social services, housing and law enforcement around a diagnosis.

Types

A combination of factors is necessary for a crime to occur:
  1. An individual or group must have the desire or motivation to participate in a banned or prohibited behaviour.
  2. At least some of the participants must have the skills and tools needed to commit the crime.
  3. An opportunity must be acted upon.
Primary prevention addresses individual and family-level factors correlated with later criminal participation. Individual level factors such as attachment to school and involvement in pro-social activities decrease the probability of criminal involvement.
Family-level factors such as consistent parenting skills similarly reduce individual level risk. Risk factors are additive in nature: the greater the number of risk factors present, the greater the risk of criminal involvement. In addition, there are initiatives which seek to alter rates of crime at the community or aggregate level.
For example, Larry Sherman of the University of Maryland, in Policing Domestic Violence, demonstrated that modifying police response policies to domestic violence calls influenced the likelihood of repeat incidents. Policing hot spots, areas of known criminal activity, decreases the number of criminal events reported to the police in those areas. Other initiatives include community policing efforts to capture known criminals. Organizations such as America's Most Wanted and Crime Stoppers help catch these criminals.
Secondary prevention uses intervention techniques that are directed at youth who are at high risk to commit crime, and especially focus on youth who drop out of school or get involved in gangs. It targets social programs and law enforcement in neighborhoods where crime rates are high. Much of the crime that is happening in neighborhoods with high crime rates is related to social and physical problems. The use of secondary crime prevention in cities such as Birmingham and Bogotá has achieved large reductions in crime and violence. Programs such as general social services, educational institutions and the police are focused on youth who are at risk and have been shown to significantly reduce crime.
Tertiary prevention is used after a crime has occurred in order to prevent successive incidents. Such measures can be seen in the implementation of new security policies following acts of terrorism such as the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Situational crime prevention uses techniques focusing on reducing the opportunity to commit a crime. Some of the techniques include increasing the difficulty of crime, increasing the risk of crime, and reducing the rewards of crime.

Crime prevention through environmental design

Crime prevention through environmental design is a crime prevention strategy which seeks to use the environment to reduce the opportunity to commit crime. Popularized by criminologist C. Ray Jeffrey in the United States, CPTED uses tools such as abundant lighting, street-facing windows, and a lack of high barriers or obstructions to reduce both the perception of crime in an area and the opportunity to commit it.

Situational crime prevention

Introduction and description

Situational crime prevention is a relatively new concept that employs a preventive approach by focusing on methods to reduce the opportunities for crime. It was first outlined in a 1976 report released by the British Home Office. SCP focuses on the criminal setting and is different from most criminology as it begins with an examination of the circumstances that allow particular types of crime. By gaining an understanding of these circumstances, mechanisms are then introduced to change the relevant environments with the aim of reducing the opportunities for particular crimes. Thus, SCP focuses on crime prevention rather than the punishment or detection of criminals, and its intention is to make criminal activities less appealing to offenders.
SCP focuses on opportunity-reducing processes that:
  • Are aimed at particular forms of crime;
  • Entail the management, creation or manipulation of the immediate environment in as organized and permanent a manner as possible.
  • Result in crime being more difficult and risky or less rewarding and justifiable.
The theory behind SCP concentrates on the creation of safety mechanisms that assist in protecting people by making criminals feel they may be unable to commit crimes or would be in a situation where they may be caught or detected, which will result in them being unwilling to commit crimes where such mechanisms are in place. The logic behind this is based on the concept of rational choice - that every criminal will assess the situation of a potential crime, weigh up how much they may gain, balance it against how much they may lose and the probability of failing and then act accordingly.
Situational crime prevention can be applied using twenty-five opportunity reducing techniques:
  • Increasing the Effort: Includes target hardening, controlling access to facilities, applying screen exits, incapacitation of offenders, deflecting offenders and controlling tools or weapons.
  • Increasing the Risks: Includes extending guardianship, assisting natural surveillance, reducing anonymity, utilizing place managers and strengthening formal surveillance.
  • Reduce the Rewards: Includes concealing targets, removing targets, identifying property, disrupting markets and denying benefits.
  • Reduce Provocations: Includes reducing frustrations and stress, avoiding disputes, reducing emotional arousal, neutralizing peer pressure and discouraging imitation.
  • Remove any excuses: Includes setting rules, posting instructions, alerting conscience, assisting compliance and controlling drugs and alcohol
One example of SCP in practice is automated traffic enforcement. Automated traffic enforcement systems use automated cameras on the roads to catch drivers who are speeding and those who run red lights. Such systems are used all over the world. These systems have been installed and are advertised as an attempt to reduce illegal driving incidents. As a potential criminal, someone who is about to speed or run a red light knows that their risk of getting caught is nearly 100% with these systems. This completely disincentivizes the person from speeding or running red lights in areas in which they know ATES are set up. Though not conclusive, evidence shows that these types of systems work. In a Philadelphia study, some of the city's most dangerous intersections had a reduction of 96% in red light violations after the installation and advertisement of an ATES system.

Applying to information systems

Situational crime prevention in general attempts to move away from the "dispositional" theories of crime commission i.e., the influence of psychosocial factors or genetic makeup of the criminal, and to focus on those environmental and situational factors that can potentially influence criminal conduct. Hence, rather than focus on the criminal, SCP focuses on the circumstances that lend themselves to crime commission. Understanding these circumstances leads to the introduction of measures that alter the environmental factors with the aim of reducing opportunities for criminal behavior. Other aspects of SCP include:
  1. Targeting specific forms of crime, e.g., cybercrime.
  2. Aiming to increase the effort and decrease the potential risks of crime.
  3. Reducing provocative phenomena.