THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF CRIME PREVENTION

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THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF CRIME PREVENTION
Week 1 Introduction and Overview
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Today

• Course Overview
• Objectives of the course
• Course overview, weekly schedule
• Course requirements
• Definition and description
• Crime prevention vs. traditional CJS approaches
• Crime prevention typologies
• Institutional levels
• Brief history of crime prevention

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Course Objectives

• Better understanding of crime prevention
• Historical theoretical, conceptual empirical
  overview
• Enhance practical skills
• Contribute to your analytical critical thinking
  skills
• Critical, analytical, problem-oriented approach
  is central to crime prevention
• Enhance your communication (writing) skills
• Proposal writing
• Report writing
• Drafting a crime prevention plan

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Class Structure

• First Half Theoretical
• Theoretical, conceptual, empirical overview
• Interactive exercises
• Second Half Practical Application
• Case Studies
• Video
• Guest lecturers
• Group discussion and exercises

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Course Overview

• Four parts to this course
• Introduction and Overview
• Dominant Crime Prevention Approaches
• Social developmental, situational, restorative
  justice, etc.
• Special topics in crime prevention
• Poor neighbourhoods, women, schools, organized
  crime, economic crime,
• Planning, implementing and evaluating a crime
  prevention project

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Weekly Schedule

• Jan. 7/14 - Course Introduction / Theoretical and
  Conceptual Overview
• Jan. 21 - Situational Crime Prevention and CPTED
• Jan. 28 - Crime Prevention Through Social
  Development
• Feb. 4 - Community Crime Prevention
• Feb. 11 - Restorative Justice
• Feb. 18 - Reading Break (No classes)
• Feb. 25 - Mid Term Exam (Multiple Choice)
• March 3 - Planning for Crime Prevention
• March 10 - Implementing and Evaluating a Crime
  Prevention Plan
• March 17 - Government Policies and Programs
• March 24 - Policing and Crime Prevention (First
  Assignment Due)
• March 31 - Special Topics in Crime Prevention and
  Community Safety
• April 7 Final Exam
• April 20 Final Assignment Due

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Course Requirements

• Mid Term Exam (Multiple Choice) 15
• Research Proposal 20
• Crime Prevention Plan 35
• Final Exam (Multiple Choice) 15
• Group Exercises/Participation! 15

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Overview
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Definitions

• there is no universally accepted definition, nor
  is there a consensus as to the boundaries of
  crime prevention
• some argue that we should define whether a
  particular strategy of program is crime
  prevention by its results and not be its methods

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Definitions

• National Crime Prevention Institute (1978)
• the anticipation, recognition, and appraisal of
  a crime risk and the initiative of some action to
  remove it.
• Van Dijk and de Waard (1990)
• the total of all private initiatives and state
  policies, other that the enforcement of criminal
  law, aimed at the reduction of damage caused by
  acts defined as criminal by the state.
• Eckblom (1996)
• an intervention in mechanisms that cause
  criminal events, in a way which seeks to reduce
  the probability of an occurrence.

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Crime Prevention vs. CJS

• The growth of crime prevention has been in
  reaction to the perceived failings of the
  criminal justice system.
• Specifically, the CJS
• has been unable to cope with the actual quantity
  of crime
• fails to identify many criminal offenders and
  bring them to justice
• fails to rehabilitate those offenders who are
  identified by the criminal justice system
• fails to address the underlying factors
  associated with crime and criminality
• may in fact promote crime through corrections
  system

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Crime Prevention vs. CJS
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Problem-Oriented Approach

• Three components to this problem-oriented
  approach
• Analytical process scope nature of the problem
  is identified, predicted and assessed through the
  gathering and analysis of relevant information
  (SARA Scan, Analyze, Respond, Assess)
• Intervention is highly individualized crafted
  specifically for the particular (potential)
  problem the scope and nature of the intervention
  must be appropriate for and commensurate with the
  scope and nature of the problem
• Alternative/flexible/individualized solutions A
  wide range of alternative and flexible solutions
  should be considered, emphasizing those that
  address root causes

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Problem-Oriented Approach

• Case Study Broadway Street, Green Bay, WI
• Green Bay Police Department
• Scan
• Analyze
• Respond
• Assess

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Dominant Crime Prevention Approaches

• Situational Interventions designed to reduce
  the opportunity for crime to occur in a
  particular time and place (social and
  environmental)
• Social Developmental Interventions designed to
  prevent the development of criminal potential in
  individuals (targeting at-risk children and
  youth)
• Community Modifying/strengthening behaviour of
  residents mobilizing residents to informally
  regulate their environment community development
  
• Policing Community policing (increased
  relations with community) and problem-oriented
  policing (address causes of crime disorder
  problems)

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Institutions
The societal institutions where crime prevention
practices and programs take place
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Exercise 1 Handout

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A Brief History of Crime Prevention

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A Brief History of Crime Prevention

• Pre-industrial era
• Villages regulated through informal social
  control
• Policing and and civic justice a communal
  responsibility
• Justice exercised on ad hoc basis by sovereign
• Arbitrary arrest and public, bloody punishment
  was main method of social control and justice

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A Brief History of Crime Prevention

• Pre-industrial Era
• Statute of Winchester (1285)
• Codified into law the first neighbourhood-based
  system of surveillance policing watch and
  ward

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A Brief History of Crime Prevention

• Pre-industrial era (significant developments)
• Classical School of Criminology (18th Century)
• concerned with developing rational, systematic,
  efficient means of delivering justice
• punishment can only be justified if it
  accomplishes the exclusion of some greater evil
• thus, punishment used to deter and prevent crime

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A Brief History of Crime Prevention

• Pre-industrial Era The London Metro Police
• As societies modernized, urbanized, more
  populous, maintaining order became increasingly
  difficult
• 1829 Creation of London Metropolitan Police
• first modern police force
• the police are the public the public are the
  police.
• principle objective of policing is prevention of
  crime

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A Brief History of Crime Prevention

• Modernity Rise of Positivism (late 19th C.)
• the study of crime became a scientific endeavour
  
• better understand the nature and causes of crime
  
• thus, develop better means to address prevent
  crime
• early developments in positivist criminology
• criminality is the result of a pathology in the
  individual
• treatment replaces punishment as the aim of CJS
• this gives rise to rehabilitation movement

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A Brief History of Crime Prevention

• Modernity The Chicago School (1930s)
• Focused on the social or group pathology behind
  crime the role of social disorganization in
  causing crime and disorder
• Community development and creating opportunities
  for disadvantaged groups is best method of
  prevention
• Create or reinforce existing local institutions
  in disadvantaged neighbourhoods
• First developmental approach to crime prevention

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A Brief History of Crime Prevention

• Rise of the Welfare State (Post WW II)
• Increased role of the state in social welfare
• Criminal justice system (formal social control)
  wholly eclipses and usurps the community-based
  system of informal social control
• Growth and intractability of the state-imposed
  CJS is unprecedented
• Police, not citizens, now have primary
  responsibility for crime prevention

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A Brief History of Crime Prevention

• 1960s and early 1970s
• Crime rate and fear of crime increase
  dramatically
• Loss of confidence in the criminal justice system
• Contemporary crime prevention begins with a
  physical design focus
• Jane Jacobs (Death and Life of Great American
  Cities)
• C. Ray Jeffery (CPTED)
• Oscar Newman (Defensible Space)
• Result early crime prevention focused
  overwhelmingly on situational measures (crime
  place)

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A Brief History of Crime Prevention

• 1970s
• Government policy begins to recognize limitations
  of CJS and advocates greater role of citizenry
• US Government begins funding crime prevention
  research and applied projects
• Governments emphasize crucial role of local
  collective action, thus giving rise to community
  mobilization model
• Evaluations begin to show limits of crime
  prevention

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A Brief History of Crime Prevention

• 1980s
• Continued emphasis on situational approaches
• Emergence not based on criminological theory, but
  practical measures to address ever-increasing
  crime rate
• Broken windows / zero tolerance
• Reflects realistic approach to crime control
• Reflects emergence of conservatism (Reagan,
  Thatcher, Mulroney) limitations of state
  intervention, individual responsibility, etc.

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A Brief History of Crime Prevention

• Late 1980/early 1990s
• Preeminence of developmental school of crime
  prevention
• Offending is part of larger syndrome of
  antisocial behaviour that emerges in childhood
  and persists into adulthood
• This behaviour is the result of a number of risk
  factors (upbringing, education, community,
  personal pathology)
• Early intervention must reduce risk factors and
  increase protection factors

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A Brief History of Crime Prevention Conclusion

• CP is not new it has always been a goal of the
  CJS, only recently has it been conceptualized as
  a unique discipline
• CP is tied to broader social and political
  developments, as well as new theories of crime
  and criminality
• CP has come full circle citizenry once again at
  the centre
• Yet, government CJS approaches still dominate
• No magic bullet crime prevention is not a
  panacea