Social & Community Crime Prevention LR

Question 1

Overview

Answer 1

Place the emphasis firmly on the potential offender & their social context. The aim of these strategies is to remove the conditions that predispose individuals to crime in the first place. These are longer-term strategies, since they attempt to tackle the root causes of offending, rather than simply remov ing opportunities for crime.

Question 2

Example

Answer 2

One of the best-known community programmes aimed at reducing criminality is the experimental Perry pre-school project for disadvantaged black children in Michigan. A group of 3-4 year olds were offered a 2-year intellectual enrichment programme alongside weekly home visits. By age 40, this group had significantly fewer lifetime arrests for violent crime, property crime & drugs compared to a control group with no such intervention. Also more had graduated from high school & more were in employment. It was calculated that for every dollar spent on the programme, $17 were saved on welfare, prison & other costs.

Question 3

other strategies

Answer 3

• Changes in policing: a move away from conflict or zero-tolerance policing, we should have community policing where officers patrol smaller areas on foot or cycle, getting to know likely offenders & gaining access to information from a public that is then more likely to trust them. This is particularly important for areas affected by poverty &/or with high ethnic minority numbers as in the past heavy-handed policing has led to riots.
• Improved welfare: unlike Right realists, Lea & Young suggest more government intervention to create jobs with prospects & fair wages, the regeneration of inner-city areas, improved housing, etc.
• Victim support: victim support groups should meet with local police & officials to address problems in particular areas. Victim compensation schemes should be expanded, as should victim-offender mediation programmes (so called restorative justice).

Question 4

A03

Answer 4

Left realist ideas are reasonable, provided governments have adequate financial resources & man-power to expand community policing. However, the emphasis on working-class crime to the exclusion of white collar, corporate & green crime has been criticised by Marxists, as has doing very little to actually deal with structural inequalities in capitalist society. Social & community crime reduction programmes can be seen as blaming the victims of inequality (or their families & communities) rather than the structure of society itself.