Conclusion: How Can We Reduce Crime

1
Chapter 17

• Conclusion How Can We Reduce Crime?

2
Introduction

• Criminal Justice systems inability to reduce
  crime
• Public Health Model stresses need to identify
  social and other causes of disease so that
  efforts can be launched to target these causes

3
The Criminal Justice System Funnel

• Number of crimes committed/number of people going
  to prison
• Decisions are made at each stage of processing
  and some defendants may be kicked out
• Lack of evidence
• Funnel effect may be less severe for violent
  crimes

4

• Implications for public policy on crime
• Concentration on offenders/offenses at bottom of
  funnel will have only a limited impact
• Makes more sense to concentrate on top of funnel
• Must focus on crime prevention

5

• Primary prevention seeks to prevent occurrence of
  disease or injury entirely by focusing on aspects
  of social or physical environment that contribute
  to it
• Secondary prevention aims to identify practices
  and situations that put people at risk for
  illness or injury

6

• Tertiary prevention occurs after illness has
  begun and seeks to minimize long-term
  consequences
• Focuses on preventing recidivism
• This is how U.S. addresses crime

7
A Sociological Prescription for Crime Reduction

• Social, Cultural, and Community Crime Prevention
  (Primary Prevention)
• Undertake social policies to create decent paying
  jobs for the poor, especially in urban
  communities
• Provide government economic aid for unemployed
• Take measure to end racial segregation in housing

8

• Restore social integration and strengthen social
  institutions of urban neighborhoods
• Reduce housing and population density
• Reduce urban neighborhood dilapidation
• Change male socialization practices masculinity
  notions move away from violence
• Social policies to reduce social and economic
  inequality

9

• Developmental Crime Prevention (Secondary
  Prevention)
• Establish well-funded early childhood
  intervention programs for high-risk children and
  families
• Affordable child day care
• Improve nations schools, especially in urban
  areas
• Prenatal and postnatal nutrition
• Expand network of battered womens shelters and
  rape crisis centers

10

• Criminal Justice Approaches (Tertiary Prevention)
• Reduce reliance on imprisonment and more emphasis
  on community corrections
• Prisons/jails should be smaller, reduce
  overcrowding, improve conditions
• Eliminate three strikes and mandatory
  imprisonment policies

11

• Consider repealing some of drug laws
• Eliminate the death penalty
• Expand community policing and directed patrol to
  hot spots
• Increase hiring of minority and female police
  officers
• Reduce brutality and racial profiling
• Increase gun control efforts
• Increase intolerance for white-collar crime and
  for political corruption