Control/Prevention/Reduction of Crime Flashcards
What is situational crime prevention?
Clarke - A pre-emptive approach that aims to reduce the opportunities of crime.
What are the 3 ways that situtational crime prevention tries to prevent crime? (Clarke)
- Crime prevention measures that are directed at specific crime, e.g. car theft.
- Measures involved in altering the enviroment in which this type of crime happens.
- Measures aimed to increase the risks of committing crime.
What are 2 types of situational crime prevention measures? (Clarke)
- Target hardening - e.g. locking doors and windows, not leaving valuables on view in the car, etc.
- Surveillance - CCTV, security guards in shops.
What is the rational choice theory of crime? (Clarke)
Criminals weigh up the risks and benefits of committing a crime and that by increasing the riskes they are more likely to be put off committing crime. Crime is opportunistic, so we need to reduce the opportunites.
What happened to the Port Authority Bus Terminal in NYC? (Felson)
It used to be poorly designed and provided opportunites for crime, e.g. lugguage theft, drug dealing, rough sleeping, etc. The bus terminal was designed to discourage crime.
What is the evalutation of situational crime prevention strategies?
It displaces crime: spatial - to another place, temporal - diff time, target - another victim, tactical - diff method, functional - another type.
Only focuses on opportunistic, petty crime.
Ignores the root causes of crime such as poverty.
Ignores WCC crime.
Methods like surveillance - used in biased ways, target young males.
What is the broken window theory? (Wilson and Kelling)
A single broken window in a neighbourhood will lead to disorder as such neighbouroods lack informal and formal social control. Broen windows stand for all various signs of disorder and lack of concern for others - found in neigborhoods. Included - graffti, begging, littering, vandalism, etc. Leaving windows unrepaired - leads to more crime.
What is the enviromental improvement? (Wilson and Kelling)
Mending anything that is broken immediatelt, towing abandoned cars, etc.
What is a zero tolerance policy? (Wilson and Kelling)
Zero tolerance policy to tackle every single, even minor, signs of disorder. Police don’t have to worry about broken windows, spend more time on serious cases.
What is the case study for zero tolerance policies? (Wilosn and Kelling)
Implementation of zero polices in NY - any subway carriage that had graffiti on it was taken out of service immediately, etc.
What are social/community crime prevention strategies? (Wilson and Kelling)
Place emphasis on the potential offenders and their social context. The aim is to remove the conditions that predispose individuals to crime in the 1st place. These are long-term strategies - attempt to tackle the root causes of offending rather then removing the opportunities of crime.
What are the causes of crime that need social/community crime prevention strategies? (Wilson and Kelling)
Rooted in social conditions such as poverty, unemployment and poor housing.
What can social reform programmes also help? (Wilson and Kelling)
More general social reform programmes - addessing the issues may have a crime prevention role even if it is not their main focus. For example, full employment schemes can reduce crime as a ‘side effort’.
What was the Perry pre-school programme?
USA, experimental group of 3-4 year olds, offered a 2 year enrichment programme. A longitudinal study followed their progress.
What was the result of the Perry pre-schoool programme?
By the time the children were 40 - they had fewer arrests, more had graducated from high school and were employed than the control gorup that did not receive the programme.
