Crime 9 Flashcards
Access and escape routes
Limit opportunities for potential offenders to access and utilise space as an escape route
Images/maintenance
Ensure physical appearance creates a positive and safe image
Activity support
Encourage appropriate use of space by legitimate stake holders; also helps make the ownership visible to strangers
Target hardening
Reduce vulnerability of potential targets by physically strengthening them; Installation of products that require greater effort to commit an offence
Examples of crime prevention through environmental design
Great wall of china; castle moats; bicycles at Melbourne university; trees and shrubs removed at La Trobe and RMIT Bundoora Universities; office beverage payments were higher when pictures of eyes were used
Types of social problems
narrow issues; broad issues; societal - global issues
Primary problems in making changes at a community/societal level
Individuals perceive they have no control over global issues e.g. global warming [learned helplessness]; therefore individuals take no action and nothing changes
Traditional approaches of social psychology
research and theory development; Dissemination of knowledge [teaching, scholarly writing]; Utilisation of knowledge [in clinical or health psych practice]
Traditional psychology approaches do not have a role in…
no social activism role
Ethical issue
traditionally psychology spends most time maintaining the status quo (past examples: supporting the stolen generation policy, treating homosexuals)
Most current public policies governments create [including law and order issues] driven by (5)
1) economic management; 2) Market versus Welfare model of health; 3) Guesswork, intuition, popular stereotypes or common-sense; 4) Populism [driven by social surveys on classic themes]; 5) Shaped by lobby groups – some most disagree with [gun lobby] while others are generally supported [women’s groups]
Frequent policies (2)
1) stiffer penalties reduce amount of crime; (2) more police, less crime, safer community
Successes at community level (4)
1) Head start (including child TV show Sesame Street); 2) quit smoking campaigns; 3) road safety campaigns; 4) government funding of abortion for teenage mothers
Head start (including child TV show Sesame Street)
Cost-benefit analysis; for every dollar spent on pre-school “education” [cost], saved society seven dollars into the future [benefit] - other benefits included: less welfare, less crime, lower formal education costs, higher employment rates
Road safety campaigns
drink-drive; bicycle helmets
