Crime prevention and control

Question 1

What is situational crime prevention?

Answer 1

• Clarke (1992): situational crime prevention is an approach that relies on reducing opportunities for a crime to take place, not on improving society or its institutions
• 3 features of measures aimed at situational crime prevention:
  1. They are directed at specific crimes
  2. They involve managing or altering the immediate environment of the crime
  3. They aim at increasing the effort and risks of committing crime and reducing the rewards
• ‘Target hardening’ measures include:
  , locking doors and windows
  , increased surveillance
  , replacing coin-operated gas meters with pre-payment cards
• Situational crime prevention uses the rational choice theory: this is the view that the criminal acts rationally, weighing up the costs and benefits of a crime opportunity before deciding whether to commit it
• This approach contrasts with theories that stress ‘root causes’ and socialisation. Clarke says that doing it that way is unattainable
• Felson (2002): Port Authority Bus Terminal in NYC

Question 2

What is one criticism of situational crime prevention?

Answer 2

Displacement: crime is not reduced, merely moved to another area

• Chaiken et al (1974): a crackdown on subway robberies in NY displaced it to the streets above
• 5 forms of displacement:
  1. Spatial- moving elsewhere to commit the crime
  2. Temporal- changing the time
  3. Target- choosing a different victim
  4. Tactical- using a different method
  5. Functional- committing a different type of crime

Question 3

What is one example in Britain where there was no displacement?

Answer 3

• 1960’s: 1/2 of all suicides in Britain were the result of gassing as Britain’s gas supply came from highly toxic coal gas
• Over time coal gas was replaced by less toxic natural gas
• By 1997: suicides from gassing had fallen to near 0
• In general, the overall suicide rate went down

Question 4

Evaluation of situational crime prevention

Answer 4

• Works to some extent but there is still displacement
• Focuses on opportunistic petty street crime and ignores white collar, corporate and state crime
• Assumes criminals make rational calculations
• Ignores the root causes of crime, such as poverty or poor socialisation

Question 5

What is environmental crime prevention?

Answer 5

• Based on Wilson and Kelling’s ‘broken windows’ theory
• The phrase ‘broken windows’ is used to stand for all the various signs of disorder and lack of concern for others that are found in some neighbourhoods
• This includes:
  , noise
  , graffiti
  , begging
  , dog fouling
  , littering
  , vandalism
• In such neighbourhoods, therre is an absence of both formal social control and informal control

Question 6

How do Wilson and Kelling propose that crime can be solved?

Answer 6

• The first step is to fix any broken windows (an environmental improvement strategy)
• Then the police must adopt a zero tolerance policing strategy

Question 7

What is the evidence of the success of zero tolerance policing?

Answer 7

• New York
• An example is the ‘Clean Car Program’, where cars were taken out of service immediately if they had any graffiti on them, and returned once clean
• Between 1993 and 1996: there was a significant fall in crime in the city, including a 50% drop in the homicide rate
• However, it’s not clear how far zero tolerance was the case of the improvements:
  , the NYPD benefitted from 7000 extra officers
  , There was a general decline in the crime rate in major US cities at the time- including ones where police didn’t adopt a zero tolerance policy
  , 1990’s: there was a big recession and high unemployment but in 1994: many jobs were created
  , Decline in the availability of crack cocaine
  , Attempted homicide rate still remained high

Question 8

What are social and community prevention strategies?

Answer 8

• Social and community prevention strategies place the emphasis firmly on the potential offender and their social context
• Aim of these strategies is to remove the conditions that predispose individuals to crime in the first place

Question 9

What is one of the best-known community programmes aimed at reducing criminality?

Answer 9

• The Perry pre-school project in Michigan
• An experimental group of 3-4 y/o was offered a 2 year intellectual enrichment program, and the children also received weekly home visits
• A longitudinal study followed the children’s subsequent progress, it showed massive differences with a control group who hadn’t partaken in it
• By age 40, they had significantly fewer lifetime arrests for violent crime, property crime and drugs
• More had graduated from high school and were in full time employment
• Estimated that for every dollar spent on the programme, 17$ were saved on welfare, prison and other costs