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Situational Crime Prevention
Understanding Criminology
Dan Ellingworth
Tuesday, 17th February 2009
Lecture Outline
• Crime Prevention: a new approach
• Typologies and Theories
• Techniques and What Works– Kirkholt Burglary Prevention Programme– Neighbourhood Watch
• Critique
How did Crime Prevention Thinking emerge
• Massive rise in crime rate since the 1950’s, despite the rise in affluence
• Massive rise in CJS expenditure
• Little evidence of conventional CJS policies working
• Legitimacy of CJS questioned
An etiological crisis of criminology?
A new paradigm?• Home Office:
– Ron Clarke: crime as opportunity• Pat Mayhew: natural gas and suicide
– British Crime Survey• a more victim-oriented approach• awareness of deficits of police data• puncture the balloon of fear of crime
– a separation of crime reduction from the punishment of offenders
The Change in ThinkingOLD
The State v. the Offender
Offender breaking the criminal code
Solution:
Punishment and Deterrence
Change offenders’ disposition to commit crime
Victim Offender
Situation
NEW
Solution:
Intervene in the situation that produces crime
Typology of Crime Prevention(Pease 1997)
• Primary (or Situational) Crime Prevention– reduction of crime without reference to criminals and potential
criminals– leading role played by the police
• Secondary Crime Prevention– Attempts to change the propensity of an individual to embark on a
criminal career– Leading role: social work / youth service
• Tertiary Crime Prevention– focuses on the truncation of a criminal career– Leading role: prison and probation– Not entirely effective:
• recruitment into crime• identification of high-rate offenders difficult• moral concern over ‘false positives’
• Move from tertiary to primary prevention
Marcus Felson: Routine Activities TheorySuitable Target
Absence of Capable Guardian
Likely Offender
Crime Occurs
Most “settings” of crime can be analysed in terms of these three factors
Crime can be prevented by altering any or all of these factors
Chemistry for Crime
• Also need to consider– facilitating factors: props; camouflage; audience– Target characteristics: “CRAVED” ‘hot products
(Concealable, Removable, Available, Valuable, Enjoyable, Disposable): also apply to predatory personal crime
– Geography: nodes, paths, settings– Opportunity is the Key
Situational Crime Prevention
3 broad aims1. Design safe settings2. Organise effective procedures3. Develop secure products
– Within these, there are now a range of techniques addressing the immediate setting of crime
– Efforts to prevent crime with reference to human nature, punitive deterrence, or rehabilitation are much less effective
Crime Prevention• ‘Renewed relevance’ for criminology over
the ‘nothing works’ pessimism
• Practical methods of reducing crime that are unconnected with punishment
• Evidence led – “What Works?”
What works in Situational Crime Prevention? (Ron Clarke)
Increasing the effort of crime prevention– Target hardening; Access Control; Deflecting
offenders; Controlling facilitators
Increasing the risks of detection– Entry / exit screening; Formal and Natural surveillance
Reducing the reward– Target removal; Property identification; Removing
inducements; Rule setting
Kirkholt Burglary Prevention Programme
• Public Housing Estate 2280 dwellings
• High Burglary Rate– Existing knowledge predicted ‘medium risk’ of
burglary– Reality: twice the ‘high risk’ rate
Kirkholt Burglary Prevention Programme Evaluation Model
• Contextualise
• Specify
• Target
• Intervene
• Measure
• Analyse and Evaluate
• Adapt
Effects1986 1987 1988 1989
Number of Burglaries
512 317 170 145
% Change -38% -67% -72%
Comparison +1% -19% -24%
Key Features of The Kirkholt Programme
1. It was well resourced2. It was about a high crime area3. It was a self-contained area and community4. One specific target (coin meters) could be
removed5. Particular crime problems were well
researched6. Well specified problem – repeat burglary
victimisation
Problems with Kirkholt Evaluation
• Identification of Detailed Impacts– Could only evaluate the project as a whole– Solution –
• Limit the range of interventions– Limits the wider impact of the project, and misses
opportunities
• Expand the scope of the target– Implementation problems?
Replication• Need to consider Context, Measure,
Mechanism and Outcome if the findings are to be replicated– E.g. Cocoon home watch– Context: A medium sized, homogeneous, clearly defined estate
with little through traffic.– Measure: Stimulus and maintenance of near universal cocoon
home watch.– Mechanism: Increased perceived risks of recognition of
offenders, plus heightened levels of informal social control.– Outcome: A reduced burglary rate overall and a general
reduction in crime and incivilities.
Neighbourhood Watch• Informal social control Model
– main agent for social control is the community, not the police
– Neighbourhood Watch produces the social interaction necessary to strengthen community cohesion: main aim to reduce fear of crime
OR
• Opportunity Reduction model– Natural surveillance– Self-protection / target hardening
Effectiveness of NW?• More support for the informal social control
model– fear of crime lower in areas where residents feel
more responsibility and control over their area– fear of crime seems to be related to perceived
level of social order– NW participants exhibit higher levels of
informal social interaction than others – community capital?
Evaluation problems• Self-selection bias
– Schemes tend to exist in areas with existing high levels of social cohesion: doubts whether attitudes and behaviour are actually changed
• Assumption that NW protects areas against offenders from other areas– highest crime areas show high levels of both offences
and offenders: difficult to overcome mutual distrust
• Some evidence to suggest heightened fear and awareness of crime
Displacement
• Temporal
• Spatial
• Tactical
• Crime type
• Perpetrator
• Never 100%
Rhetoric and Reality of Crime Prevention
• 2 histories of crime prevention (Weatheritt)– the elevation of crime prevention as the primary
objective of policing encouraging– the day-to-day reality less encouraging
• CP still marginal to main policing activities
• Police culture still generally reactive: CP not seen as getting “a result”
Rhetoric and Reality of Crime Prevention
• Multi-agency approaches– still dominated and dependent on police– local authorities now have a statutory duty to get involved.
However:• no extra funding• not a leading role• audits and evaluations leading to situational crime prevention, but not
social crime prevention– an unwarranted assumption of a shared approach?
• Jock Young– “net-widening”: community control has supplemented, rather than
replaced traditional crime control– little empirical evidence of this theory