3.4 crime prevention and control Flashcards
What do left realists recognise about crime prevention?
- both the offenders and the victims of the crimes that worry people most are found in the more disadvantaged communities
What do left realists emphasise?
- the need to tackle the material and cultural deprivation - such as poverty, unemployment, poor housing and education
- these generate anger and frustration, and are the risk factors dfor crime
What should crime prevention involve, according to the left realists?
- building community cohesion and strong communities
- multi-agency working, where a variety of agencies work together with local people to tackle crime
- more democratic policing
- tackling social deprivation
- intensive parenting support
What are some criticisms of left realist crime prevention strategies?
- they downplay the role of the offender in choosing to commit crime
- they ignore white-collar and corporate crimes
- neighbourhood policing might be seen as an extension of control and surveillance by the state over the whole population
What do right realist approaches focus on?
- individuals and the specific location of crime rather than on wider social issues
What do right realists emphasise?
- individuals choose crime and must be persuaded not to do so, by reducing the opportunities for crime and increasing the chances of being caught and punished
What is meant by environmental crime prevention?
- Wilson and Kelling ‘broken windows’ thesis
- if a briken window isn’t repaired then others are likely to be broken and further neglect will follow
- to prevent deterioration it is necessary to keep environments in good physical condition
- the police should have a policy of zero tolerance
What is meant by routine activity theory?
- Felson and Clarke(1998) = suggest that a crime occurs as part of everyday routines, when there are 3 conditions present
What are the 3 conditions in routine activity theory?
- there is a suitable target for the potential offender: a person, place or an object
- there is no ‘capable guardian’ to protect the target
- there is a potential offender present, who thinks the first two conditions are met and then makes a rational choice whether or not to commit the crime§
What is meant by situational crime prevention?
- this is achieved by ‘designing out crime’ and ‘target hardening’ measures
- e.g. hostile architecture, CCTV, anti-climb paint
- aims to reduce opportunities for crime and disorder in particular locations
What are criticisms of situational crime prevention?
- it removes the focus from other forms of crime prevention
- doesn’t pay sufficient attention to catching criminals
- displacement theory = doesn’t prevent crime but simply displaces it to other areas
What does Chaiken argue about displacement?
- spatial displacement = moving elsewhere to commit crime
- temporal displacement = committing crime at a different time
- target displacement = choosing a different victim
- functional displacement = committing different types of crime
How will increased social control prevent crime?
- individuals are encouraged to choose conformity over deviance and crime when there are strong social bonds integrating them into communities
What are some general criticisms of right realist approaches to crime prevention?
- zero tolerance policing may divert police resources away from more serious offences
- ignore white-collar and corporate crimes
- don’t address the wider social causes of crime
- assume offenders act rationally in choosing crime
What is the postmodernist approach to crime prevention?
- involves a need for the CJS to recognise the diversity of identities leads them to emphasise more informal localised arrangements for preventing and controlling harms
What are some strengths of the postmodernist approach?
- it draws attention to the diversity of identities
- provides insights into teh way contemporary developments like extensive surveillance can reduce the harms caused by crime and disorder
What are some weaknesses of postmodernist approach?
- doesn’t recognise the importance of social inequality
- doesn’t recognise that decentralised and more informal arrangements for crime control to respond to more local identities
