crime prevention Flashcards
SCPS unsuccessful - displacement
displace crime - displacement takes several forms such as spatial - moving crime to another place, temporal - moves crime to different time of day, target - moving crime to another victim.
SCPS based on assumptions that criminals use rational choice to decide if and where to commit crime - criminals weight up risks and benefits of committing crime and that by increasing risks they’re more likely to be put off committing crime, e.g. through surveillance strategies like installing CCTV in car parks - but this simply displaces crime to a location where there is no CCTV - doesnt actually reduce crime.
SCPS unsuccessful - bias
methods like surveillance used in biased way - targeted at certain social groups - young e/m males - leads to increase in crime rather than preventing it.
Norris and Armstrong - CCTV operators make discriminatory judgements about who among thousands of potential suspects they focus on and there’s massively disproportionate targeting of young black males simply because they belong to particular social group - can lead to SFP - targeted group internalises negative label and turns to crime.
SCPS bias criticism
Ditton et al’s - found CCTV operators don’t use technology in discriminatory way.
SCPs target hardening
based on rational choice theory
make the area of crime harder to access - lock doors and windows
felson - case study - port authority bus terminal NYC - poorly designed and provided opportunities for crime but was re-designed to discourage crime
target hardening criticism
displaces crime rather than preventing it
SCPs surveillance
foucault - panopticon prison system to illustrate disciplinarian power - governing mind and body through surveillance. disciplinary power dispersed throughout 19th cent in institutions like prisons and schools, non prison based social control order = form of carceral archipelago - series of prison islands through which professionals exercise surveillance over population
surveillance becomes self surveillance - panopticon prison - prisoners aware they’re being observed so behave at all times
SCPs self surveillance criticism
surveillance only effective for short period of time - after a while people get used to it
SCPs surveillant assemblages
putting different forms of tech together to improve surveillance
haggerty and erricson - film in colour, option to zoom and record sound advanced even further so CCTV can combine with other types of tech to carry out even better surveillance
e.g CCTV combined with face recognition so they’re able to recognise individuals - criminal on run from police - data can be downloaded into face recognition software linked to CCTV and alert police.
ECP - wilson and kelling
measures based on Broken window concept where single broken window in neighbourhood leads to disorder - neighbourhood lacks both informal and formal social control.
zero tolerance policy - tackle even minor petty crimes
case study - implementation of ZTP in NY - any subway carriage with graffiti taken out of order immediately
social CP
remove conditions that predispose individuals to crime - long term strategies - attempt to remove root causes
include policies that tackle underlying causes of crime e.g poverty
case study - perry pre school programme in USA - experimental group of 3-4 year olds offered 2 year enrichment programme - by the time they were 40 they’d significantly fewer arrests, more graduates and employments than control group
social CP criticism
ignores individuals’ choice to commit crime as they focus on social causes
ECP unsuccessful - ignores WCC and CC
only focus on low level street crimes like fly tipping and vandalism - ignores WCC and CCs.
zero tolerance leads to police targeting w/c, e/m males more than other members of society - leads to SFP and increase in crime, while also ignoring WCC and CC.
