CD: Crime Prevention and Control

Question 1

What are three crime prevention strategies?

Answer 1

• Situational Crime Prevention (RR)
• Environmental Crime Prevention (RR)
• Social and Community Prevention (LR)

Question 2

What does situational crime prevention focus on?

Answer 2

• Managing or altering the immediate environment.
• Increasing the effort and risks of committing crime and reducing the reward.

Question 3

Situational Crime Prevention: What is target hardening?

Answer 3

Target hardening measures increase the effort a criminal needs to make - and increases the chances of them being caught.

Question 4

Provide an example of target hardening. If

Answer 4

locking doors, installing CCTV and alarms increase the effort a burglar needs to make by increasing surveillance and increasing the chance of them being caught.

Question 5

Situational Crime Prevention: What theory can target hardening be linked to?

Answer 5

Related to Clarke’s rational choice theory and the balance of the consequences and rewards.

Question 6

Situational Crime Prevention: What did CLARKE argue?

Answer 6

Clarke argued that most theories offered no realistic solutions - as we cannot change the socialisation of everyone. There is most scope for prevention in the immediate situation.

Question 7

What supporting evidence is there for Situational Crime Prevention?

Answer 7

• Bus station in NYC often had luggage thefts, rough sleeping and drug dealing. To resolve this, they replaced the large sinks with smaller ones to prevent homeless bathing, installed CCTV, and made the lights brighter - which reduced the crime.
• Pubs replace glass beer cups with plastic ones to stop people glassing others in fights.

Question 8

A03 Situational Crime Prevention

Answer 8

This solution does not reduce crime. It leads to DISPLACEMENT - where the crime will simply move elsewhere. CHAIKEN found a crackdown on robberies on the NY subway only moved them to the streets.

Question 9

A03 Situational Crime Prevention: What forms can displacement take?

Answer 9

Displacement can take several forms:
- Spatial (different location)
-Temporal (different time)
-Target (different victim)
-Tactical (different method)
-Functional (commit different type of crime)

Question 10

Environmental Crime Prevention is also known as what?

Answer 10

Broken Windows

Question 11

WILSON AND KELLING’S article ‘Broken Windows’ has been described as..

Answer 11

‘perhaps the most influential article on crime prevention every written’

Question 12

What is Broken Windows a metaphor for?

Answer 12

Signs of crime

Question 12

What do Wilson and Kelling believe?

Answer 12

Wilson and Kelling believe the absence of control leads to crime.
Solution= Crack down on disorder.

Question 13

What does the Environmental Crime Prevention strategy involve?

Answer 13

• Environmental Improvement
• ZTP

Question 14

What is meant by environmental improvement?

Answer 14

Repair any broken windows, graffiti or signs of disorder. Leaving them unrepaired sends out a signal that no one cares for the community, laws or order. Need to show these are taken seriously.

Question 15

What is meant by Zero Tolerance Policing?

Answer 15

We must proactively tackle even the slightest signs of disorder (eg. begging) - even if this isn’t criminal. This will prevent serious crime taking root.

Question 16

What supporting evidence is there for Environmental Crime Prevention?

Answer 16

Clean Car Program in NYC - cleaning any graffiti from subway cars as soon as it appeared- eliminated graffiti on the subway. Other successful programs tackled fare dodging, drug dealing and begging followed.

Question 17

What do statistics show about the ZTP approach in the US?

Answer 17

Police cracked down on ‘squeegee men’ and discovered many had outstanding warrants for violent and property crimes.

Question 18

Between 1993 and 1996, there was a significant fall in crime in NYC involving a 50% drop in homicide rate. Why is this significant to Environmental Crime Prevention?

Answer 18

Showed that by cracking down on minor crimes bigger crimes (eg. murder) didn’t take place.

Question 19

A03: Environmental Crime Prevention

Answer 19

• Marxists: Ignores crimes of the powerful. ZTP focuses on petty crimes in WC areas - more arrest, selective enforcement etc.

Question 20

What does the Social and Community Prevention strategy emphasise?

Answer 20

Emphasises the potential offender and their social context to remove the conditions that predispose offenders to crime.

Question 21

Is Social and Community Prevention a long-term or short-term process?

Answer 21

Long-term, because they aim to tackle the root causes (eg. poverty, unemployment, poor housing). They believe policies to improve the rot causes would prevent crime as a side effect.

Question 22

What supporting evidence is there for Social and Community Prevention?

Answer 22

Perry Pre-School Project.

Question 23

Social and Community Prevention: What was the Perry Pre School Project?

Answer 23

Targeted disadvantaged 3-4 year olds. Offered intellectual enrichment/support in weekly visits. At age 40, a longitudinal study showed differences with a control group, fewer arrests for violence, drug use etc, while more had graduated from high schools.

Question 24

Social and Community Prevention: What does the Perry Pre School Project show?

Answer 24

An estimate said that for every $1 spent on the program, the state saved $17 on welfare, prisons etc. Showed that investing to reduce poverty in children, reduced crime rates later in life.

Question 25

Social and Community Prevention: What other examples, aside from the Perry Pre-school project, might improve these root causes?

Answer 25

Sue Start’s Children Centres were set up to help and give advice on health, parenting, money, training and employment.
Some centres also provide early learning and full day care for pre-school children.

Question 26

A03 Social and Community Crime Prevention

Answer 26

• RR: Funding high crime areas is rewarding their criminal behaviour. Need ZTP and Environmental Improvements to show law and order has to be taken seriously.
• Generally focus on low-level crimes of violence and disregards crimes of the powerful or environmental crimes.
• Implementation of these measures would be expensive and take a long time to see the effects (longitudinal)