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CJE3444 Crime Prevention
Dr. E. C. Buchholz
Chapter 5
Neighborhood Crime Prevention
 The key element that will reduce and prevent crime is the ability of the physical features
to enhance active surveillance, engender community cohesion and promote citizen action
against crime.
 The effectiveness of CPTED may be altered by factors such as social cohesion.
Neighborhood Crime Prevention
 Neighborhood crime prevention consists of techniques used to influence levels of crime
and fear of crime.
 The most important general strategy is citizen involvement.
Summary of Crime Prevention
Neighborhood Crime Prevention Efforts
 Neighborhood Block Watch
 Community Anti-Drug Programs
 Citizen Patrol
 Police Community Involvement
Neighborhood Block Watch
 The basic goal of neighborhood crime prevention is increasing community awareness
and problem solving.
 Neighborhood Watch Groups:
- Discuss mutual problems
- Work to increase feelings of community
- Become additional support for police
- Build community cohesion
- Proactive
Social control
 Heavy use of surveillance
Ability to distinguish legitimate users of an area
Members become eyes and ears for the police
Most people just call on their neighbors to keep an eye on their home when they are away
Shaw and McKay
 Many neighborhoods need to draw on resources from a variety of sources in an effort to
build social control
Friendships
Families
Local businesses
Churches
Schools
Interpersonal networks
Neighborhood Watch Participation
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Neighborhood Watch Programs
o Citizen patrols
o Whistle stop Education programs
o Neighborhood advocacy
o Neighborhood clean-up
o Physical design changes
o Property identification
o Operation Identification (most common)
o Escort services
o Phone chains
o Court watch
o Hiring guards
o Organized surveillance
Neighborhood Watch Participation
The most common activity among groups:
 Operation Identification (81% of the programs)
 Security surveys (68%)
 Crime hotlines (38%)
 Block parenting (27%)
 Improving street lighting (35%) and physical environmental concerns (38%)
 Can also include travel companions, victim assistance programs, and phone chains
Community Anti-Drug (CAD) Programs
 Fueled by inner city cocaine and crack use in 1990s
 Defensible Space & Broken Windows theory in action
 Aid police in high drug areas
 Patrol streets
 Clean up efforts
CITIZEN PATROLS
 Often a key element of neighborhood watch
 Active surveillance
Purpose is to put more eyes on the street
Can be both foot and mobile patrol
 Residents are discouraged from physically intervening into any suspicious activity they
may find
 No clear number of citizen patrols is available
 Variations on the citizen patrol theme include
Whistle Stop
Radio Watch
Police-Community Involvement
 Police are traditionally seen as the initiators and/or leaders of neighborhood watch and
other programs
 The National Night Out is one of the largest programs
Organizes neighborhoods, provides educational information, handouts, and more importantly
social events to promote community cohesion and familiarity with the police department
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BUILDING GUARDIANSHIP
 Key component in neighborhood crime prevention is guardianship
 Importance of guardianship is demonstrated most effectively in routine activities theory
Three things must coincide for crime to occur:
1. a suitable target
2. a motivated offender
3. an absence of guardians
 The opportunity for crime greatly enhances the chances that crime will take place
BUILDING GUARDIANSHIP
 Overt actions to build social cohesion, enhance surveillance, promote crime prevention
activity, and similar effort—all contribute to guardianship.
 Guardianship can take a variety of forms
 Eck (1994) proposes triplets of guardianship—guardians of targets, handlers of offenders,
and managers of places
BUILDING GUARDIANSHIP
 Inner triangle represents the basic components of routine activities—the point at which
targets, offenders, and places coincide
 Outer triangle indicates the potential guardians or protectors for each of the dimensions
Guardians are typically the owner of the property, a family member or friend, the police or
security, or others who provide surveillance and protection
Assumes that the guardian has the physical ability to intervene and the willingness to do so
EVALUATION OF NEIGHBORHOOD CRIME PREVENTION
 Two distinct measures of effectiveness
Impact these activities have on crime and the fear of crime
Impact on intervening factors such as social cohesion, a sense of territoriality, and
neighborliness
 Often include an evaluation of the effectiveness of the organization effort
Some researchers suggest widespread participation in various crime prevention activities
Unknown how many people regularly attend crime prevention meetings, heed the advice they
are given, or do more than simply show up at the meetings
Evaluation
 Outcome measures range from simple documentation of existing groups and numbers of
participants to some statement about the quality of individual involvement.
EVALUATION OF NEIGHBORHOOD CRIME PREVENTION
 Typically report positive results on neighborhood improvement, cohesion, and
territoriality
Little or no evidence that these changes would have been made without the outside
intervention
Many improvements are subsidized by funds from the government
Completed by paid workers form outside the area
EVALUATION OF NEIGHBORHOOD CRIME PREVENTION
 Results are mixed
 Community cohesion appears to be unaffected by neighborhood watch programs
 Watch participants hold very positive attitudes of the police
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Evaluation Concerns
 Do not measure how many
people regularly attend crime prevention meetings;
heed the advice they are given; or
do more than simply show up at the meetings.
Crime Evaluation
 Reduce levels of crime, particularly property crime
 Little, if any, impact on interpersonal crime
Most interpersonal crimes are between people who know each other
Private, in home crimes, are difficult to detect
Crime between strangers should experience a great reduction
 Most studies depict a positive evaluation for neighborhood programs
 Initial programs should produce increased crime rates (because of increased calls) but this
should dissipate over time
EVALUATION OF NEIGHBORHOOD CRIME PREVENTION
EFFECTS ON CRIME
 Official Records
Most studies report a lower level of crime in the target communities
Holloway et al. (2008) meta-analysis of research reveals that neighborhood watch is effective
at significantly reducing crime
Important confounding factor in evaluation of neighborhood watch may be changes in the
level of reporting to the police
Successful programs should increase the number of calls to the police, which may result in
increases in recorded crime
Concurrently, there may be a reduction in crime
EVALUATION OF NEIGHBORHOOD CRIME PREVENTION
 Victimization Measures (surveys)
Avoid the confounding influence of changes in reporting crimes to the police
Most report strong support for neighborhood watch
Time-bounded effects suggests that programs need to be periodically reviewed and promoted
in order to prolong their effectiveness
EVALUATION OF NEIGHBORHOOD CRIME PREVENTION
Kirkholt Burglary Prevention Project
 Burglary rate more than twice that of other high-risk areas in England
 Establishment of “cocoon neighborhood watch” (very small groups of homes banded
together for surveillance and support)
Removal of pre-payment heating fuel meters in homes
Improvements in physical security devices
The use of community teams to conduct security surveys
EVALUATION OF NEIGHBORHOOD CRIME PREVENTION
Kirkholt Burglary Prevention Project
 Specifically targeted repeat burglary victims
 Burglary rate fell roughly 75 percent over the life of the project (4 years), while the
remainder of the area only saw a decrease of 24 percent
 Repeat victimization was significantly reduced
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 Both physical design features (e.g., the removal of the pre-payment meters) and social
efforts (e.g., the cocoon neighborhood watch) were essential elements of the successful
project
EVALUATION OF NEIGHBORHOOD CRIME PREVENTION
Safer Cities program
 Each individual program included a coordinator, police participation, various agency
representatives, and a steering committee
Committee was supposed to identify and implement preventive actions according to the
unique needs of the community
Neighborhood watch
Target hardening
Property marking
Community mobilization
Use of signs and other media
 Level of burglary was reduced
 Burglary may have increased in adjacent areas and locations where the program was not
adequately or fully instituted
Kirkholt and Safer Cities Models
 Both studies resulted in a reduction of crime when neighborhood programs were
introduced
 Results were aided by increased personal prevention methods
 Displacement to surrounding areas was minimal
 The key to successful crime prevention activities appears to lie with program
implementation.
EVALUATION OF NEIGHBORHOOD CRIME PREVENTION
Community Anti-Drug Programs
 Form of neighborhood anti-crime program
 Mirror neighborhood watch programs in the use of
surveillance tactics,
reporting to the police,
working with agencies to clean up the area,
providing information to residents,
instituting anti-drug programs, and
participating in citizen patrols.
 No count of CAD programs is available
EVALUATION OF NEIGHBORHOOD CRIME PREVENTION
Community Anti-Drug Programs
 Some evidence that anti-drug programs have a positive impact on social cohesion
 Residents report fewer drug problems after initiation of the program
 Reduced signs of physical decay, increased feelings of empowerment and social
control, and greater satisfaction with the area
 Not all CAD initiatives are embraced by or operated by local residents
 Some residents resent intrusions and methods used by programs
CAD Programs
 Physical design changes
 Group meetings
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Phone hotlines for anonymous reporting
Enforcement of zoning and housing codes
Some result in increased levels of social cohesion
EVALUATION OF NEIGHBORHOOD
CRIME PREVENTION
Citizen Patrols
 Guardian Angels
 In San Diego, have little impact on the level of crime
 Engendered a great deal of goodwill among the citizens in the areas they patrol
 Greater feeling of safety when Guardian Angels are around
 Help citizens with a variety of concerns
 Citizen Patrols
 Citizen patrols can be effective at reducing both crime and fear
 The Guardian Angels are the most well known citizen patrol
EVALUATION OF NEIGHBORHOOD CRIME PREVENTION
EFFECTS ON FEAR OF CRIME
 Reductions in fear of crime can be very dramatic
Even in hard-to-organize areas or implementing prevention with limited community support
 Failure to find reduced fear in some studies may be due to a variety of problems in the
research
Participation in crime prevention programs and attempts to heighten awareness of crime may
engender more, not less, fear and worry
Varying definitions of “fear” make assessments of program impact difficult
Focusing on high-crime, high-fear areas face a major challenge for changing attitudes
EVALUATION OF NEIGHBORHOOD CRIME PREVENTION
EVALUATION ISSUES
 Definition of “neighborhood” and "community"
Research is particularly susceptible to variations in the definition of neighborhood
Rarely explicitly defined
Existence of a name does not mean that the area has set boundaries or that everyone knows
the boundaries
Boundaries would not mean that the area is homogeneous
 “Streetblock” (homes on either side of a single block) may hold more relevance to
residents than the idea of neighborhood
Overtown
Once recognized as the epicenter of music in Miami, a place where Thurgood Marshall
vacationed and Langston Hughes wrote poetry, Overtown is now considered by most of Miami as
a dangerous and blighted area with more vacant lots than buildings. However, despite its
proximity to Miami and hotspots like South Beach, Overtown is a shadow of its former self. All
of the clubs, hotels and commercial centers that lined Overtown’s bustling streets have been
demolished.
(The Standard Culture, 2011)
EVALUATION OF NEIGHBORHOOD CRIME PREVENTION
EVALUATION ISSUES
 Most interventions are not implemented in isolation from other prevention activities
Difficulty of identifying what is working and/or what is causing the problems
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Expectation that a single intervention will have more than a minimal impact on crime and
fear when the causes of the problems are many and varied
 Failure to adequately assess the program’s implementation
CITIZEN PARTICIPATION & SUPPORT
WHO PARTICIPATES?
 Are these individuals who represent the general population?
 Those who take preventive measures more often are
males
middle-to-upper income
home owners
more highly educated
white
live in single-family dwellings
CITIZEN PARTICIPATION & SUPPORT
What is the problem with these results?
CITIZEN PARTICIPATION & SUPPORT
 Suggest a homogeneous and stable neighborhood
 Residents have built a stake in the neighborhood
 Residents willing to take actions to protect their investment
Citizen Participation & Crime Prevention
 Those who participate tend to be “joiners”
Have higher feelings of responsibility toward the community than non-participants
 Find their way into CP groups from associations within other social organizations
 Success is often determined by strength of leadership within the group
CITIZEN PARTICIPATION & SUPPORT
 Relationship between crime/fear and group participation is not clear
 Findings are not consistent across all studies
 Divergent findings on participation may be due to a number of factors
Different groups of subjects are used in the analyses
Measure the key variables in different ways
Dubious assumption that all prevention techniques can be subsumed under the single
umbrella of crime prevention
There are different domains of crime prevention
Clear differences across the various groups of activities in terms of individual demographic
characteristics, perceptions of crime and fear, and neighborhood characteristics
Organizing Prevention Efforts
 A number of obstacles inhibit the organization of neighborhoods:
Few opportunities to participate
Many people fail to become involved even when the opportunity to do so exists
Lack of crime or motivation
Areas which need the most help, often high crime, inner city neighborhoods, tend to have less
enthusiasm about participation
Organizing Neighborhood Crime Prevention
 Rosenbaum (1987) outlines five problematic assumptions underlying neighborhood
watch programs
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 Assumption 1—neighborhood watch can be easily implemented on a large scale to
provide citizens with an opportunity for participation in crime prevention activities
Many individuals live in areas with few opportunities to participate
 Assumption 2—if given the opportunity to participate in neighborhood watch, most
citizens would find the program appealing and would become involved regardless of
social, demographic, or neighborhood characteristics.
Participation varies greatly based on demographic, neighborhood, and crime prevention
factors
Organizing Neighborhood Crime Prevention
 Assumption 3—if and when citizens get together at Block Watch meetings, the
assumption is made that this interaction and discussion will produce a number of
immediate effects. These effects include reaching a consensus about problem definition,
reducing fear of crime, increasing group cohesion, and increasing participation in both
individual and collective crime prevention actions after the meeting.
 Past research shows failure to increase group cohesion, reduce fear, or increase
participation
Organizing Neighborhood Crime Prevention
 Assumption 4—neighborhood watch organizers (both police and community volunteers)
invest in this strategy with the belief that such activities, once initiated, will be sustained
 Maintaining crime prevention activity is a major problem
 Assumption 5—a final and fundamental assumption underlying neighborhood watch is
that the collective citizen actions implied by this strategy, if set in motion, would reduce
the level of criminal activity and disorder in the neighborhood, thereby setting the stage
for a reduction in fear of crime and other neighborhood improvements.
 Only qualified support in past research
Organizing Neighborhood Crime Prevention
 How then can citizen guardianship be stimulated?
 Sampson and Eck (2008) claim that so-called super controllers are not doing their job
 Super controllers:
 “The people, organizations and institutions that create incentives for controllers
to prevent … crime”
 Super controllers do not directly impact on any of the key factors that facilitate
crime
 Super controllers impact crime by prompting guardians, handlers, and managers
to take action
Organizing Neighborhood Crime Prevention
Super controllers:
 Regulating agencies
Liquor sales to minors
 Insurance providers
Incentives for alarms or lights
 Civil suits again property owners
Abandoned buildings
Organizing Neighborhood Crime Prevention
Bursik and Grasmick (1993)-Neighborhood social control sources:
 Private control
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Interpersonal relationships
Family members
Friends
Close associates
 Parochial control
Schools
Churches
Businesses
 Public control
Ability to marshal in put, support, and resources from public agencies
Chapter Summary
 Evidence tends to support the basic idea
of neighborhood crime prevention as a means of combating crime and the fear of crime
Magnitude of the changes often appear to vary from study to study
Foremost among the causes is the fact that the neighborhood initiatives are not always
successfully implemented
End of Chapter 5
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