Crime Prevention and Control

• Three Crime Prevention Strategies:

  > situational crime prevention (right realist)

  > environmental crime prevention (right realist)

  > social and community crime prevention (left realist)
• Situational Crime Prevention:

  > involves managing the immediate environment to increase the effort and risks of committing crime and reducing the reward

  > target hardening - locking doors and increased surveillance

  > related to rational choice theory

  > supporting evidence - redesigning NYC bus stations, to reduce opportunities for deviance (theft, rough sleeping and drug dealing)
• Environmental Crime Prevention:

  > Wilson and Kelling - broken windows - the absence of control leads to crime, so we need to crack down on disorder

  > environmental improvement - repair any signs that suggests no one cares, such as broken windows or graffiti

  > zero tolerance policing - proactively tackling the slightest sign of disorder, even if it is not criminal

  > supporting evidence - clean car programme in NYC (graffiti on subway cars), cracking down on 'squeegee merchants' found people with outstanding warrants for violent and property crimes
• Social and Community Crime Prevention:

  > emphasises the potential offender and their social context, to remove the conditions the predispose them to crime - tackle root causes such as poverty, unemployment and poor housing - policies to improve these would prevent crime as a side effect

  > supporting evidence - the Perry Pre-school Project offered intellectual enrichment for disadvantaged 3-4 year olds, and at age 40 fewer arrested for violent crime or drug use, compared to control group - estimated that for every $1 spent on the program, the state saved $17 on welfare and prison costs