Situational Crime Prevention Strategies: A Comprehensive Guide, Lecture notes of Criminal Justice

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Situational Crime Prevention

Strategies

Prof (Dr) G S Bajpai

Chairperson, Centre for Criminal Justice Administration

National Law Institute University

Bhopal

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Crime Prevention

Intervening in the causal chain to

prevent crime from occurring at

all

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Two ways to

prevent crime

1. Change people’s criminal

motivations

2. Reduce opportunities for crime

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Situational crime prevention

(SCP)

1. Primary crime prevention.

2. The art and science of reducing opportunities

for crime

3. Based on new crime theories:

◦ Rational choice ◦ Routine activity

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Focus of New Crime Theories

 Crime, not criminality

 Events, not dispositions

 Near, not distant causes of crime

 How crime occurs, not why it happens

 Situational and opportunity factors

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5 Ways to Modify a Situation

 Increasing the effort the offender must make to carry out the crime.  Increasing the risks the offender must face in completing the crime.  Reducing the rewards or benefits the offender expects to obtain from the crime.  Reducing or avoiding provocations that may tempt or incite offenders into criminal acts  Removing excuses that offenders may use to “rationalize” or justify their actions.

Reducing Opportunity

 Reducing or avoiding provocations that may tempt or incite offenders into criminal acts  Removing excuses that offenders may use to “rationalize” or justify their actions.

Reducing Opportunity

Opportunity for crime can be

reduced directly & indirectly:

(i) Directly: “organizing” the immediate physical environment (e.g., target hardening, access control, target removal)

(ii) Indirectly: “organizing” people to foster or reinforce their individual and collective behaviour to minimize their vulnerability to crime (e.g., Neighbourhood Watch)

Triangle

 when a crime occurs, three things happen at the same time and in the same space:

1. a suitable target is available.
2. there is the lack of a suitable guardian to prevent the crime from happening.
3. a motivated offender is present.

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Increase the Risks

 Extend guardianship

 Assist natural surveillance

 Reduce Anonymity

 Utilize place managers

 Strengthen formal surveillance

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Reduce the Rewards

 Conceal targets

 Remove targets

 Identify property

 Disrupt markets

 Deny benefits

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Remove the Excuses

 Set Rules

 Post instructions

 Alert conscience

 Assist compliance

 Control drugs and alcohol

Broken Windows Theory

 Minor incivilities, if unchecked and uncontrolled, will promote more serious crimes

 ‘Incivilities’ act as the catalyst: they represent signs of disorder and signify that 'no one cares', that the environment is ‘uncontrolled and uncontrollable’

 Solution: stop and reverse the cycle of decline in its earliest stages by a focus on ‘order maintenance’ and aggressive policing of incivilities and other signs of crime.