Chapter 6 Flashcards
Crime Prevention
Describe the history of crime prevention
Not a new idea. Humans have known that crime is not simply a matter of motivation, but also a manner of opportunity.
Earliest ancestors: maximized lighting from the sun and moon and employed defensive placement of homes on the sides of cliffs, with only one entrance and exit. Cave dwellers surrounded homes with large boulders.
1930s and 1940s: Chicago Area Project (CAP) altering of the social fabric- get people to stay in the neighborhood so that there wasn’t constant turnover and build a sense of community and pride.
1970s rise in prevention: Neighborhood or Block Watch.
Biggest boost: Newman- emergency of physical design as a topic (“defensible spaces”: designing buildings properly to promote a sense of safety and power to occupants and making them less afraid and vulnerable.
1970s and 1980s: theories of crime were developed that gave added importance to the role of crime opportunity.
Cohen and Felson’s “routine activity theory” seeks to explain how physical and social environments create crime opportunities by brining together in one place at a particular time a “likely” offender, a “suitable” target, and the absence of a “capable guardian” against crime. Used to explain how large increases in burglary rates occurred in 60/70s because home electronic goods became lighters and women increasingly entered the labor force, resulting in more empty homes during the day.
Most recent movements focus efforts and interventions on attacking specific problems, places, and times. Situational crime prevention (ex: installing surveillance equipment in parking lots experiencing vandalism, etc)
Explain the relationship between community, crime prevention and problem oriented policing, and how each can identify and address crime in so called “anchor points”.
Community oriented policing and problem solving argues that the police and the community must stop treating the symptoms of the problem. This strategy thus requires a new age of prevention- as well as improvement of prevention efforts. Alterting physical designs of buildings, for example, is not in itself generally sufficient for the altering the level of crime; physical design changes cannot stop a truly motivated offender. Altering the physical environment does not guarantee that residents will become involved and take action. Direct efforts to enhance active citizen involvement are necessary.
Anchor points: important to social cohesion- schools, libraries, parks, medical facilities, grocery stores, child care centers, commercial stores, churches, and so on, which are important for social, physical, and spiritual survival and where residents interact, share information, and form social ties. Anchor points can also be crime generators, such as a park where drug sales occur, homeless people sleep, or gangs hang out.
Define what is meant by CPTED, how it functions, and the focal points of its first, second, and third generations
Crime Prevention through Environmental Design- proper design and effective use of environment that can lead to a reduction in the fear and incidence of crime, and an improvement in the quality of life (core beliefs: access control, natural surveillance, territorial reinforcement, maintenance)
1st: situational focus- focused on all spaces having a clearly defined and designated purpose and being routinely cared for and monitored
2nd: social ecology/neighborhood focus- recognizes the most valuable aspects of a safe community lie not in structures of the brick and mortar type, but rather in structures of family, of thought, and most importantly, of behavior. Also looked at how neighborhoods work: 1) size of the district, population density, and differentiation of buildings 2) urban meeting places are a necessity and a lack of them makes a neighborhood dangerous 3) youth clubs- also a crime prevention and community building strategy. Also, added ecological threshold: tipping point- a neighborhood, just like a natural ecosystem, has the capacity to contain only so much; too much of something and the system will collapse.
3rd: integrates human motivation and aspirations within a neighborhood Liveability Hierarchy-two underlying themes on which liveability depends: public health and sustainability
Explain the crime prevention officer’s roles
Solve problems-proactive work- recognizes the importance of community input and involves officers trying to solve community problems, even if they are NOT criminal in nature.
Crime prevention effort builds a sense of partnership with other city and community agencies.
Describe what is meant by situational crime prevention and list its 5 goals
Seeks to eliminate crime opportunities- based on rational choice and routine activities theories and departs radically from most criminology in its orientation.
It is often referred to as a problem solving approach to crime prevention.
It is focused on the settings for crime and the prevention of crime rather than on persons committing criminal acts. It seeks to forestall the occurrence of crime rather than to detect and sanction offenders. Seeks to eliminate criminal or delinquent tendencies through improvement of society or its institutions but merely to make a criminal action less attractive to offenders.
- Increasing the effort needed to commit the crime
- Increasing the risks associated with the crime.
- Reducing the rewards
- Reducing the provocations
- Removing the excuses
Review some of the primary considerations for conducing a crime and victim oriented publicity campaign.
Publicity directed at victims can advertise:
1. Self protection techniques
2. New ways to report crime
3. Location of police facilities or resources
4. Dangerous areas
5. Offenders living in the area (ex: sex offenders)
6. Neighborhood crime problems
Publicity directed at offenders can advertise:
1. Police techniques or future police crackdowns
2. Penalties or the risk of apprehension for certain crimes
3. Results of past crackdowns or police operations
4. Knowledge of an illicit market or drug trade
5. Legislative changes
Explain what is meant by crime displacement how it relates to crime prevention
The idea what rather than eliminating crime, interventions simply result in the movement of crime to another area, shift offenders to new targets in the same area, alter the methods used to accomplish a crime, or prompt offenders to change the type of crime they commit.
Research has shown displacement is not inevitable but is contingent on the offender’s judgments about alternative crimes.
Discuss some crime reduction or prevention activities have been shown by researchers to work, to not work, and to hold promise.
What works:
1. Providing extra police patrols in high crime hot spots
2. Monitoring known high risk repeat offenders to reduce their time on the streets and returning them to prison quickly.
3. Arresting employed domestic abusers to reduce repeated abuse by these suspects
4. Offering rehabilitation programs for juvenile and adult offenders that are appropriate to their risk factors to reduce their rates of repeat offending
Doesn’t work:
1. Gun buyback brogans failed to reduce gun violence
2. Neighborhood Watch programs
3. Arrests of unemployed suspects for domestic assault caused higher rates of repeating offending over the long term
4. Increased arrests or raids on drug markers
5. Storefront police officers failed to prevent crime in the surrounding areas
6. Police newsletters with local crime information failed to reduce victimization rates
7. Correctional boot camps
8. “Scared Straight”
9. Shock probation, shock parole, and spilt sentences
Holds Promise:
1. Problem solving analysis is effective when addressed to the specific crime situation.
2. Proactive arrests for carrying concealed weapons in gun crime hot spots, using traffic enforcement and field interrogations, can be helpful.
3. Community policing with meetings to set priorities reduced community perceptions of the severity of crime problems in Chicago.
4. Field interrogations of suspicious persons reduced crime in a San Diego experiment.
5. Gang offender monitoring by community workers and probation and police officers can reduce gang violence.
6. Community based mentoring by Big Brothers/Big Sisters of America substantially reduced drug abuse in one experiment, although evaluations of other similar programs showed that it did not.
7. Battered women’s shelters were found to reduce at least the short term (six week) rate of repeat victimization for women who take other steps to seek help.
True or false:
A criminal justice system adage holds that it is far better than to investigate, solve, arrest, and prosecute someone for committing a criminal offense than to prevent the crime from occurring in the first place.
False
True or false:
Crime prevention today largely rests on the contemporary view that you should either “lock it or lose it”.
False
True or false:
At its heart, problem oriented policing is about preventing crime.
True
True or false:
We know that the proper design and use of the environment can lead to a reception in the fear and incidence of crime as well as an improvement in the quality of life.
True
True or false:
Studies show that, in general, Neighborhood Watch, boot camp, “Scared Straight”, home detention, and gun buyback programs do not significantly reduce or prevent crime.
True
