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CJE3444 - CRIME PREVENTION
Dr. E. Buchholz
Chapter 10
Situational Crime Prevention
Situational Crime Prevention
• Instead of attempting to make sweeping changes in an entire community or neighborhood,
situational prevention is aimed at:
Specific problems
Places
Persons
Or times
Clark
• Crime often reflects the risk, effort, and payoff as assessed by the offender.
• The offender chooses offences in which the offender assesses as having the most
profitable opportunities
• Situational Crime Prevention
Clarke
• Situational prevention focuses on:
1. highly specific forms of crime
2. that involves the management, design, or manipulation of the immediate environment
3. so as to reduce the opportunities for crime and increases the risks as perceived by a wide
range of offenders.
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Do you believe given the right temptations, even the most honest people will steal.
Remember payphones?
Situational Crime Prevention
• Revisits the theories of Routine Activities and Rational Choice as well as incorporating
the “lifestyle perspective”
• Lifestyle perspective: focuses on the activity of the victim as a contributing factor in
criminal acts.
Situational Crime Prevention
• Rational Choice
Individuals make decisions on whether to commit an offense based on various inputs
Effort involved
Potential payoff
Degree of peer support
Risk of apprehension and punishment
Individual needs
Situational Crime Prevention
• Routine Activities (Cohen and Felson)
The daily activity of individuals results in the convergence of motivated offenders with
suitable targets in the absence of guardians.
Situational Crime Prevention
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Lifestyle perspective: focuses on the activity of the victim as a contributing factor in
criminal acts.
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Crime Pattern Theory (Brantingham & Brantingham)
• Criminal behavior fits patterns that can be understood in terms of when and where crime
occurs.
• It is through daily activities that individuals develop templates about the social and
physical environment in which they operate.
Steps of Situational Crime Prevention
1. study the problem
2. identify possible responses
3. implement the intervention and
4. evaluate and adjust the intervention
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Like many other prevention strategies, evaluation and adjustment is vital to the survival
of the prevention initiative
Clarke’s 12 Techniques of Situational Crime Prevention
• Clarke classified situational techniques into three very general orientations: “increasing
the effort,” “increasing the risk,” and “reducing the rewards.”
• Clarke’s 3-pronged approach to interventions:
Surveillance
Natural
Formal
Employee
• Clarke’s 3-pronged approach to interventions:
Target hardening
Locks
Unbreakable glass
Safes
Other security
• Clarke’s 3-pronged approach to interventions:
Environmental management
Reducing the opportunity for crime
Clarke’s 12 Techniques
• Deflecting Offenders
Offering alternatives to undesirable behavior
• Controlling Facilitators
Limiting guns, alcohol, public phones (used for drug sales)
• Entry/Exit Screening
Form of surveillance
• Target Removal
Reducing the potential payoff
• Removing Inducements
Eliminating attractive targets
Problems with Clarke’s Typology
• Clark’s typology fails to address:
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Competing motives of crime
Personal issues of guilt and sympathy
Other precipitating factors
Clarke added:
• Controlling Disinhibitors
Factors that reduce the social and psychological barriers to committing crimes (drugs &
alcohol)
• Inducing Guild or Shame
Cognitive therapy (Aaron Beck)
Shift from an emphasis on physical changes toward psychological and social factors.
• Perceptions
A situational technique may have little physical impact, but a large psychological impact
Increase “perceived” risks, reduce “anticipated” rewards.
Worley’s Four Categories of Precipitators:
1. Prompts
Events or situations that may support the opportunity for crime
Open doors
2. Pressures
Direct stimuli that lead to action
Deviant peers
Going along with the crowed
Following improper/illegal orders
3. Permissibility
Situations or beliefs that place criminal behavior into an acceptable light
“Everybody does it.”
4. Provocation
Factors that make an individual uncomfortable, frustrated, irritable, or otherwise aroused to
the point of taking some form of action, including crime.
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New York Giants football legend Lawrence Taylor who was convicted of under-age sex
with a prostitute (16) , told an interviewer “everybody does it.” (Taylor had a wife and 5year-old son at the time.)
Cornish and Clarke
• There are always individuals who are willing to offend.
• A motivated offender is a given.
Clarke’s Techniques Revised
ituational Crime Prevention
• The new approach (Table 10.2) allows for Clarke’s original measures to be included and,
in addition, allows for the study of precipitating and motivational factors.
• The revised method (Table 10.2) creates a simple reference tool for those attempting to
implement prevention programs.
Issues with Situational C.P.
• Items are not mutually exclusive
A technique that increases risk may also increase the effort.
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Successfully completing a crime despite high risk and effort could lead to greater (psychic)
rewards (or monetary gain).
• Items that impact one factor may impact another one as well
Issues with Situational C.P.
• The idea is considered atheoretical or is often criticized as selecting only positive
approaches from similar theories (neglecting to address non-supporting stances from
these theories)
• Fails to consider basic social and cultural problems
Education
Unemployment
Discrimination
Issues with Situational C.P.
• It is intrusive with the demand for more CCTV and electronic detection of crime
Actually has gained widespread acceptance by general public
Airports
• It also is suggested it fails to address the often overlooked “fear” of crime problem
Transit Systems
• England, New York, and other major cities have had serious issues with fair avoidance
and vandalism
• Various situational crime prevention techniques initiated
Transit Systems
• Fair Avoidance
Redesign of ticket machines and passes
Promotions encouraging the purchase of transit asses
Automatic gates
Physical barriers
Staff control of entrances
Monitors on buses
Transit Systems
• Vandalism
Graffiti-proof paint
Securing rail yards
Depriving “artists” of being able to “get up” their work
No one would ever see the work
Heavy publicity
Educational programs
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Daily Mitteldeutsche Zeitung (Germany) reported that graffiti, slashed seats, smashed
windows on bus shelters and damaged ticket machines were costing Deutsche Bahn and
other rail operators – and ultimately commuters – more each year.
Motor Vehicle Theft
• Increasing the difficulty has led to reductions in the level of theft
Steering column locks
Automobile immobilizers
Motor Vehicle Theft
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• Changes in physical design
Improved design of parking decks and parking areas
Reduced access
Eliminated obstructions to observation
Improved lighting
Increased use of security cameras
Patrols
Theft
• Various studies on library materials, shoplifting, thefts from shopping bags, robbery, and
identity theft
• Libraries (Scherdin)
Electronic tagging resulted in significant decreases, as well as diffusion of benefits to other
holdings
Theft
• Farrington: Merchandise electronic tagging has significantly reduced the level of
shoplifting
Theft
• Webb: Thefts from shopping bags, pickpocketing can be reduced by simply widening
aisles, allowing for increased surveillance.
ATM Robberies
Demarcating safe zones around cash dispensers
Establishes a psychological barrier between potential victims and offenders.
Burglary Revictimization
• Situational Prevention Action
Improve physical security
Property identification
“Cocoon” neighborhood watch
Installation of alarms
Security surveys
Consult with police
Child Sexual Assault
• Situational techniques can also be used with personal offenses
• Pedophiles
Attack the opportunity of offending
Make it difficult for offenders to enter areas where children are found
Enhance screening of potential employees in businesses/organizations that serve youths
Limit offender access to pornography or contact with other offenders
Increase risks
Reduce permissibility
Summary
• Situational crime prevention offers an approach which seeks to target specific problems
with individualized interventions.
• Situational crime prevention is not the only approach but warrants investigation with
crime prevention analysts
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END OF CHAPTER 10