Topic 5- crime prevention

• Wilson and Kelling


  claims about the history of policing and how the role/function of the police has changed over time

  • in the past, the role of the police was to assist communities in maintaining order
  • following the urban riots of the 1960s, the police role slowly changed from maintaining order to fighting crimes
• Wilson and Kelling


  psychological claims about how criminal behaviour can develop

  • at the community level, crime emerges from disorder in a developmental sequence
  • untended vandalism can lead to the breakdown of community controls
  • the 'broken windows' theory applies to behaviour as much as it does to property
• Wilson and Kelling


  they make various suggestions for the future

  • the police should focus on order-maintenance as their primary role
  • although citizens can do a great deal to maintain order, nonetheless is must clearly fall to the police to accept the responsibility for doing this
  • the police should be taken out of their patrol cars and onto the strreets
  • police chiefs should work out where to focus their resources, the key is to identify neighbourhoods that are at the tipping points and mend the broken windows
• Cohen and Felson


  there are three key elements which are necessary for the commission of most crimes:

  • suitable targets- things worth stealing
  • motivated offender- someone who is able and willing to carry out the crime
  • the absence of a capable guardian- someone to deter the criminal

  if any of these elements is missing, then crime is less likely to take place. individuals should try to make it harder for criminals to access their possessions, avoid showing off valuable items in public, and ensure it is well-guarded
• Bratton


  the principles of 'broken windows' was applied in New York in three waves

  1. subway graffiti- a cleaning station was set up to ensure that all subway carriages with graffiti on them were cleaned up, they would let kids spend three days painting them and then use rollers to paint over
  2. subway fare-dodging- teams of police in plain clothes were assigned to stations and used to speed up the processing of those who had been arrested, 1 in 7 arrested had an outstanding warrant and 1 in 20 were carrying a weapon
  3. quality of life crimes- attention shifted to 'squeegee men' and drunk people
• Brown


  • brown analysed the reported crime data in town centres in Birmingham, Newcastle and Kings Lynn before and after CCTV cameras had been introduced
  • the number of burglaries reported in Newcastle was reduced by 56%
  • the number of reports of criminal damage by 34%
  • but Burrows studied the effect of installing CCTV in four London Underground stations
  • crime at the stations with CCTV fell by 70%
  • but in the 15 closest stations, the fall in crime rate was much lower at just 25%
  • this suggests that the criminals just moved to these other stations so CCTV just displaces crime to other places
• Ernest-Jones 


  setting= a university cafeteria

  IV= posters containing messages to clear litter had either eye images on them, or flowers on them

  DV= amount of littering

  Results= 50% reduction in littering when the posters featured eyes

  Suggestion= have anti-crime posters with eyes on