Chapter Summary

• There are two broad strategies that can be applied to prevent crime: (1) the use of social controls (including legal sanctions); (2) changing some aspects of the situation in which the crime takes place.
• The use of social sanctions is seen, for example, in laws restricting the sale and possession of certain types of drug. Social regulation is evidence in film classification and censorship and restrictions on what can be shown on television: these restrictions invariably centre on sexual and violent material.
• Situational crime prevention relies on making it harder for the criminal to access targets and on increasing the likelihood of detection when committing a crime.
• There is a concern that situational crime prevention can lead to displacement such that rather than stopping crimes, the criminal acts shift to more vulnerable targets or to different geographical locations.
• Some aspects of situational crime prevention have raised concerns about infringement of our civil liberties: the term ‘surveillance society’ has been used to describe our world, which bristles with security cameras, speed cameras, CCTV and so on.

Reading List

Farrington, D. P., & Coid, J. W. (Eds.). (2003). Early prevention of adult antisocial behaviour. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kennedy, D. M. (2009). Deterrence and crime prevention: Reconsidering the prospect of sanction. London: Routledge.

Sherman, L. W., Farrington, D. P., Welsh, C., & MacKenzie, D. L. (Eds.). (2002). Evidence-based crime prevention (revised ed.). London: Routledge.

Welsh, B. C., Farrington, D. P., & Sherman, L. W. (2001). Costs and benefits of preventing crime. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Weblinks

The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) is the independent regulator of media content. The ratings you see before a film, DVD or computer game (U, PG, 12, etc.) are decided by the BBFC and are intended protect us, particularly children, from content that may be harmful. The BBFC website gives information into how decisions are made which determine who is legally allowed to see certain types of material.

Arson: http://www.westyorkshire.police.uk/help-advice/crime-prevention/business-crime/preventing

Robbery:

http://www.bbfc.co.uk

http://www.stalkinghelpline.org/

The open access journal Surveillance and Society makes available a wealth of material:

http://www.surveillance-and-society.org

http://www.prevention-violence.com/

Neighbourhood Watch signs are to be found in many cities, towns and villages. The Neighbourhood Watch website provides a lot of information about just how they operate:

http://www.ourwatch.org.uk

http://www.protectionagainststalking.org/

I found this final website just by browsing. Roger Clarke is a consultant specialist in data surveillance and privacy working in Australia. The website gives an insight into the real world of surveillance with lots of links to other sites:

http://www.rogerclarke.com/

http://www.victimsofcrime.org/

Study Questions

Open Questions

Is it the case that portrayals of violence in the popular media are causally related to the level of violent crime?

Can laboratory studies of the effects of pornography realistically be generalised to real world behaviour?

Are the risk factors for high risk female offenders the same as for high risk male offenders?

Do we really live in a 'surveillance society'?

Should schools have armed guards to reduce the risk of school shootings like those seen in the USA?

Why are civil liberties an important consideration in situational crime prevention?