Crime prevention and control

• Situational crime prevention - Clarke:

  • 'pre-emptive approach that relies, not on improving society or its institutions, but simply on reducing opportunities for crime'
  • 3 measures aimed at SCP:

  1. they are directed at specific crimes
  2. involve managing or altering the immediate environment of the crime
  3. aim at increasing the effort and risks of committing crime and reducing the rewards.
• Situational crime prevention - Clarke:

  • argues most theories offer no realistic solution to crime
  • the most obvious thing to do is focus on the immediate crime situation, since this is where scope prevention is greatest.
• Situational crime prevention - Felson:

  • gives an example of SCP strategy. The Port Authority Bus Terminal in NYC was poorly designed and provided opportunities for deviant conducts
  • e.g. toilets were a setting for luggage thefts, rough sleeping, drug dealing and homosexual liaisons.
• Situational crime prevention - Chaiken et al:

  • Idea of displacement
  • e.g. a crackdown on subway robberies in NY merely displaced them to the streets above.
• Environmental crime prevention - Wilson and Kelling:

  • 'Broken windows'
  • uses the phrase 'broken windows' to stand for all the various signs of disorder and lack of concern for others that are found in some neighborhoods.
  • argue leaving broken windows unrepaired, tolerating aggressive begging etc, sends out signal that no one cares.
• Environmental crime prevention - Wilson and Kelling:

  • disorder and the absence of control leads to crime
  • solution is to crack down on any disorder, using a twofold strategy;

  1. environmental improvement strategy: any broken window must be repaired immediately, abandoned cars towed, otherwise more will follow and the neighborhood will be on the slide.
  2. police must adapt a zero-tolerance policing strategy.