Situational Crime Prevention Understanding Criminology Dan Ellingworth Tuesday, 17 th February 2009.

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