5. Crime Prevention (Social)

Question 1

WHAT IS CRIME PREVENTION?
A wide range of strategies that are designed to reduce the likelihood of crime by: (2 things)

Answer 1

1) Making a crime more difficult to commit for a criminal

2) Making it less worth their while.

Question 2

EXAMPLES OF CRIME PREVENTION (3)

Answer 2

• Foot patrols, zero tolerance policy
• Citizen patrols, organized community clean up days, social events with local law enforcement (picnics, street, parties, etc..)
• CCTV provides a visible deterrent to would be criminals

Question 3

WHO CAN IMPLEMENT CRIME PREVENTION STRATEGIES? (5)

Answer 3

Individuals
Communities
Local businesses
Police
Government

Question 4

1) How features of neighbourhoods can deter crime? (5 things)

Answer 4

• Street lighting
  (illuminates face, minimises glare and shadows)
• Access control
  (use one single entry point to buildings prevents criminals entering and exiting through multiple points of entry)
• Signs of ownership
  (plant trees and place benches in communal outdoor spaces)
• Target hardening
  (locks on bikes, immobilisers on cars, installing screens to protect bus drivers from assaults, iron bars on windows)
• Housing design
  (defensible space)

Question 5

Zimbardo (1969)- Broken window experiment
What were the conditions and what were the results in them?

Answer 5

Condition 1: in the Bronx, New York
Within 10 minutes people began stealing parts from the car.
After 3 days all valuable parts had been stripped and the car became entertainment- people smashing the windows, ripping upholstery etc

Condition 2: in Palo Alto, California
Sat for more than a week without being touched.
Zimbardo smashed a window with a sledge hammer- other people then began to smash windows and wreck the car. Within a few hours the car was resting on its roof, demolished.

Question 6

Broken Windows theory (3 facts)

Answer 6

• To focus on serious crime as a method of crime prevention is misleading.
• Serious crime is seen as a long-term consequence of disorder in communities.
• Disorder when left unchallenged can lead to crime.

Question 7

Broken Windows theory (in 4 steps)

Answer 7

1) Neighbourhoods with disorder or vandalism/abandoned properties

2) can lead to fear in communities

3) leads to withdrawal from the community

4) lead to further unrest and no maintenance of order

Question 8

The changing role of the police ( 4 things)

Answer 8

• Move from order-maintenance to law enforcement has increased legal restrictions on what the police can do.
• This has led to restrictions on what arrests could be made. In the past charges such as “vagrancy”, “public drunkenness” and “suspicious person” were used to maintain order. Under a new more legal framework these dubious charges are questioned.
• This then starts to decriminalise disreputable behaviour and takes away the police’s ability to maintain order.
• Also policing moved away from foot patrols to car patrols again restricting opportunities for the police to maintain order and be a visible presence in communities.

Question 9

Maintaining order - Wilson and Kelling also suggest some strategies that could help communities increase security and maintain order, including: (3 things)

They also believe that police…

Answer 9

• Patrol officers can go to and from stations on public transportation.
• Employing private security guards
• The hiring of off-duty police officers for patrol work in residential buildings.

Suggesting that these arrangements are probably more successful than hiring private watchmen. They can then enforce rules about smoking, drinking and disorderly conduct by ejecting the offenders.
They also believe that police should protect communities as well as individuals - the police should recognise the importance of maintaining, intact, communities without broken windows.

Question 10

Implications of Broken Windows theory (4 things)

Answer 10

• Assigning officers to foot patrol in neighbourhoods with high crime rates is not always beneficial as these are not always the most vulnerable to criminal invasion
• Officers should be assigned to communities where they can make the most difference.
• Maintenance of order is the most important role of the police in crime prevention
• Zero tolerance.

Question 11

a) Explain how the research by Wilson and Kelling (1982) could be used to improve quality of life in cities. (10 marks) (how to answer)

Answer 11

Pick out two findings and link these to how they can improve the quality of life in the cities.

• Police identifying neighbourhoods that are not yet too crime-ridden and then taking actions to increase a sense of public order such as carrying out more foot patrols and enforcing informal rules. cuts to policing in America= less foot patrols (reactive than proactive). This caused the residents to become demoralised and crime ridden- increasing foot patrol after this makes little difference.
• Dealing with broken windows/vandalism to reduce feelings of disorder- Zimbardo
• Further police training to ensure that people are treated fairly- In 1960s in Chicago police branded as brutal ‘unprovoked attacks’ on black citizens.

It is important for the answer to make the link between the key research and suggestions for how to improve quality of life in cities

Question 12

NEWMAN (1972) DEFENSIBLE SPACE
Newman (1972) developed the defensible space theory. He pointed out that…

Support for Newman’s theory …

Answer 12

NEWMAN (1972) DEFENSIBLE SPACE
Newman (1972) developed the defensible space theory. He pointed out that many new high-rise developments went into rapid decay with high rates of residential dissatisfaction. He suggested that this was caused by the design of the housing projects because they offered little opportunity for residents to defend any secondary territory within or around buildings. Newman called this defensible space this describes “the bounded or semi-private areas surrounding living quarters that residence can territorialise so that they appear to belong to someone.”
Support for Newman’s theory was drawn from a correlational study in which he looked at crime rates in 100 estates in New York and found that the greater the amount of defensible space, the lower the incidence of crime

Question 13

Creating defensible space:

Answer 13

The intention of physical features is to create a sense ofterritorialismincommunitymembers which will ensure a safe living environment for those that care for it.
According to the theory, housing developments that evoke territorialism are “the strongest deterrents to criminal and vandal activity.” Outdoor spaces should be given functions, boundaries can change public spaces into private or semi-private areas, indoor spaces should visually provide for close watch of outside areas.

Newman holds that through good design, people should not only feel comfortable questioning what is happening in their surroundings, but they should feel obligated to do so. Any intruder should be able to sense the existence of a watchful community and avoid the situation altogether. Criminals fear the likelihood that a resident, upon viewing the intrusion, would then question their actions.

The defensible space theory is applicable to any type of planned space, the key is the development of a communal area in which residents can “extend the realm of their homes and the zone of felt responsibility.” Circulation paths and common entry are important aspects of defensible design as well. Residents must also feel a need to extend their protective attitudes to locations where property and urban streets and surroundings connect. The interfacing between private property and community space should be protected similarly. This makes public spaces feel like residents’ own territory so they will challenge strangers.

Question 14

Zero Tolerance - Based on three core principles:

Answer 14

Based on three core principles:

• Address all types of criminal acts, in order to prevent escalation to more serious crime; ‘nip things in the bud’.
• Police officers should be confident to tackle even the lowest level of crimes (litter dropping) and antisocial behaviour (arguments in the street)
• Low-level crime can be tackled with low-intensity, humane methods by officers to create an environment that is then inhospitable to more serious crime.

Question 15

Zero tolerance policies and ‘Broken Windows’ in New York (7 facts)

Answer 15

• By the early 1990s New York City had long held the dubious honour of being considered one of the crime capitals in the world.
• When Bratton took his position as police commissioner in 1994, he tasked the force with reducing crime, disorder and fear.
• The initiative placed dual emphasis on tackling serious crime and on police officers addressing low-level crimes such as vandalism, loitering and vagrancy.
• Bratton’s directive was based on the theory of ‘broken window’
• Around 7000 new police were recruited, many to engage with members of the community during foot patrols.
• These approaches were linked to a huge fall in serious crime rates, hotspots for crime were identified and criminal acts were prevented rather than reacted to.
• Bratton reported an overall drop in crime rate of 37% in 3 years and an impressive 50% drop in homicide

Question 16

Zero tolerance policies (Background) support?

Answer 16

Kelling and Sousa – support for zero tolerance policing;
New York – 1989 – 1998;

Analysed crime figures
For every 28 minor arrests that was one less violent crime
Estimated that broken windows policing led to 60,000 less violent crimes (5% reduction)

Question 17

Other evidence for zero tolerance

Answer 17

Other evidence for zero tolerance
Bratton suggests that the fall in crime is also due to dear organisational goals and plans for the NYPD to reduce crime and a focus on quality of life issues as well as serious crime. It should also be noted that there were 7000 extra police officers recruited between 1990 and 1994 (Bratton 1998) which may have made a difference in reducing crime in New York.

Question 18

Challenges to zero tolerance

Answer 18

Challenges to zero tolerance
Bernard Harcourt and Jens Ludwig (2006) explain that the reduction in crime that Kelling and Sousa attribute to zero tolerance and broken windows policing is in fact simply mean reversion. By this they mean that New York experienced the largest increases in violent crime during the 1980s largely due to the explosion of crack cocaine use. However, as crack cocaine use ebbed during the early 1990s it would be expected that there would be large declines in violent crime during the 1990s. Therefore, the reductions were not just due to the police strategies. Harcourt and Ludwig attribute the fall to what they call Newton’s law of crime (like his law of gravity), what goes up must come down!

• In 1969, Philip Zimbardo conducted an experiment where he abandoned two similar cars in different neighbourhoods- one in the heart of the Bronx, a relatively poor suburb of New York City, the other in an affluent neighbourhood in Palo Alto, California. He removed the number plates, left the bonnets open, and recorded what happened.
• In the Bronx, within ten minutes of abandonment, people began stealing parts from the car. After three days all the valuable parts had been stripped from the car and it became a source of entertainment. People smashed the windows, ripped upholstery, and chipped the paint, reducing the car to a pile of junk.
• In Palo Alto, however nothing happened. For more than a week, the car remained untouched. There was no theft, vandalism or even a scratch. Zimbardo decided to see what would happen if he smashed part of the car with a sledgehammer. Passersby were soon taking turns with the hammer, wrecking the car and within a few hours, the vehicle was resting on its roof, demolished.

Question 19

Developing an explanation

Answer 19

Developing an explanation
- Two criminologists James Wilson and George Kelling (1982) took notice of Zimbardo’s experiment and it spurred their now famous “broken windows’ theory of crime that is the key research described on the next spread.

• Their premise is that if a broken window remains unrepaired, vandals will soon break a building’s remaining windows. They explain that this happens because the broken window sends a signal that no one is in charge, breaking more windows costs nothing, and there are no consequences to breaking more windows.
• The broken window is a metaphor for ways that behavioural norms break down in a community. A ‘norm’ is a standard created by the way most people behave-it leads us all to believe that this is what is OK within a certain social situation. If one person writes graffiti on a wall that is the beginning of a ‘norm”. Soon others will be spraying paint. If one aggressive beggar begins working a street corner, others will follow. In summary, once people begin disregarding the usual prosocial norms that keep order in a community, crime will increase (Petersen 2004).

Question 20

Evaluation points - Zero Tolerance

Answer 20

Reductionist: Problems with ZERO TOLERANCE POLICING might not be the only explanation for the drop in crime rates in New York. Also, street gangs had reduced significantly during that time as the street price of cocaine and other hard drugs had gone down considerably due to an increase in supply of the drugs. Therefore ignores motivations behind the crimes and fails to see the underlying causes of criminal behaviour.

Scientific: Could be seen as reliable are they are based on number of arrests recorded in 1989-1998 based on NYPD records which are under strict guidelines. However…..

Socially sensitive: However with Zero tolerance policy certain groups may feel targeted/discriminated against and it can seriously affect relationships between the police and communities.

Ethnocentric as designed to deal with the problems experienced in western cultures-an aggressive form of law and order may not work/appropriate in other cultures.

Question 21

Evaluation

Answer 21

Zimbardo- Field experiment therefore high in ecological validity.-

Generalisability-Explanation of broken windows theory can be applied to all cities as they demonstrated that in different cities The Bronx (less affluent) and Palo Alto (more affluent) that once vandalism occurs all cities irrespective of affluency are open to the possibility of happening. But only carried out in America, diverse cities but western cultures.

Kelling- Newark foot patrol officers in run down areas also high in ecological validity. However observations could be seen as subjective which could affect the internal validity of the research.

Question 22

Debates

Answer 22

Kellings- use of broken windows policing is a reductionist approach as it ignores a number of other key explanations such as drug use and the economy.

Newman is also reductionist stating that the physical design of buildings explains the difference in crime rates in Van dyke and Brownsville.

Holistic approach- Wilson and Kellings review of all of these influences, community, police, private security etc.

Question 23

Situational / Individual explanations-Crime prevention

Answer 23

Situational- Wilson and Kelling use their observations from accompanying foot patrols officers to show that features of neighbourhoods such as run down areas with broken windows influence crime rates, also vulnerability to crime due to lack of community care.

Situational- Zimbardo- Broken windows theory

Individual- According to Newman and defensible space theory- Individuals are also responsible for crime in the areas and can protect properties to reduce risk of crime alongside the police and the community. He states that crime prevention will not work unless people take responsibility for the area and maintaining their property.

Question 24

Usefulness of research

Answer 24

The research can be regarded as useful because of the social benefits it brings to neighbourhoods. For example, Newman (1973) argued that where neighbourhoods and residential areas have little or no defensible space, residents will be less satisfied with their neighbourhood, and there will be more crime and fear of crime than in residential areas where architectural design creates more space. By setting out to create defensible space in housing projects Newman suggests that crime prevention can occur simply through architectural design.

Similarly, the article by Wilson and Kelling is useful because it highlights the important role the police have in crime reduction. For example, the people of Newark clearly believed the police were the key to order maintenance and therefore central to crime prevention.

On the other hand the anecdotal evidence (based on personal opinion) from Kelling lacks validity and therefore his observations should be applied cautiously - though they are supported by the crime statistics cited by Zimring (2011) who reported that between 1990 and 2009, the murder rate reduced by 82 percent in New York.

Question 25

(a) Using Wilson and Kelling’s (1982) article, discuss how crime can be prevented by the features of a neighbourhood. (10 marks) (model answer)

Answer 25

In their article, Wilson and Kelling explored the links between low level crime, disorder and subsequent occurrences of serious crime in communities. The authors considered the Newark Foot Patrol experiment, called the ‘safe and clean neighbourhoods programme’, which took part in a state-wide initiative starting in the mid-1970s. It was designed to improve the quality of community life and to prevent crime, by putting more officers on foot patrol. The researchers engaged in participant observations of police officers in communities. A review of the programme after five years found that making police officers more visible to neighbourhoods had not resulted in a decrease in crime rates. However, the review found that residents reported feeling as though crime had been reduced; and because they felt more secure, they were taking fewer precautions, such as locking doors. The increase in foot patrols in the neighbourhood also resulted in better community relations and lowered the residents’ fear of crime. Members of the community also felt relieved and reassured when the police helped to maintain order and more confident about reporting crime because they felt that something would be done about it.

From their findings, Wilson and Kelling proposed a situational explanation of crime: known as the broken windows metaphor. This explanation suggests that disorderly neighbourhoods lead to serious crimes. Disorder is a trigger for fear in residents, as they see disorder as an indication that serious crime is on the rise. Wilson and Kelling suggest that this is true for any neighbourhood because a broken window left unrepaired suggests that no one cares about this property, and this in turn suggests that no one cares about the neighbourhood. The broken windows theory argues that this feature has an effect on residents’ attitudes. They become isolated from their neighbours and are less concerned with, or involved in, what happens in their community. Wilson and Kelling argue that the citizen who fears the drunk and the rowdy teenager is concerned that serious street crime flourishes in areas in which such disorderly conduct goes unchecked. The drunks and the rowdy teenagers being unchallenged is an example of the first broken window. However, neighbourhoods with foot patrol officers can prevent further crime from happening by dealing with these disorders

The findings presented in the article clearly display how the presence of foot patrol police officers in a neighbourhood can have a significant impact on residents’ attitudes towards crime. Rather than catching serious criminals, the officers were preventing crime through maintaining public order. Wilson and Kelling suggest that the use of police vehicles was a physical and mental barrier to police engagement with members of the community and to having their presence felt Officers in police cars will also ultimately end up Ignoring low-level crime, which can then become a feature of a neighbourhood and lead to more serious crime due to the police not having direct contact with the community.
Fear of crime and poor relations with police can lead to a lack of responsibility and personal involvement in community affairs. Therefore having police on foot patrol reduces the fear of crime and enables communities to become more active in reporting low-level crime. According to the broken windows theory, low-level crime (no matter how small) is an indicator of more serious crime. Having police on foot patrol enforces informal rules and consequently reduces criminal activity. Therefore, police foot patrols are a useful crime prevention technique.