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

2. Lecture Outline Crime Prevention: a new approach Typologies and Theories Techniques and What Works –Kirkholt Burglary Prevention Programme –Neighbourhood Watch Critique

3. 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?

4. 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

5. The Change in Thinking OLD The State v. the Offender Offender breaking the criminal code Solution: Punishment and Deterrence Change offenders’ disposition to commit crime VictimOffender Situation NEW Solution: Intervene in the situation that produces crime

6. 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

7. Marcus Felson: Routine Activities Theory Suitable 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

8. 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

9. Situational Crime Prevention 3 broad aims 1.Design safe settings 2.Organise effective procedures 3.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

10. 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?”

11. 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

12. 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

13. Kirkholt Burglary Prevention Programme Evaluation Model Contextualise Specify Target Intervene Measure Analyse and Evaluate Adapt

14. Effects 1986198719881989 Number of Burglaries 512317170145 % Change -38%-67%-72% Comparison +1%-19%-24%

15. Key Features of The Kirkholt Programme 1.It was well resourced 2.It was about a high crime area 3.It was a self-contained area and community 4.One specific target (coin meters) could be removed 5.Particular crime problems were well researched 6.Well specified problem – repeat burglary victimisation

16. 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?

17. 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.

18. 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

19. 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?

20. 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

21. Displacement Temporal Spatial Tactical Crime type Perpetrator Never 100%

22. 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”

23. 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