Crime and deviance - Topic 9: Control, Punishment and Victims
Crime prevention and control-sociologist list
Key:
Heheh-Sociologist Heheh-Important information
Situational crime prevention
● Clarke (1992)
- Situational crime prevention → a pre-emptive approach that relies, not on
improving society or its institution
- Three features aimed at situational crime prevention:
1. Directed at specific crimes
2. Involves managing/altering the immediate environment of the crime
3. Aim at increasing the effort and risks of committing a crime and reducing the
rewards
- Example → ‘target hardening’ measures such as locking doors and window
increase the efforts a thief needs to make, and increased surveillance in
shops via CCTV to increase the likelihood of shoplifters getting caught
- Rational choice theory of crime → criminals weigh up the costs and benefits
of acting out a crime opportunity before deciding whether to commit it
- Contrasts with other theories of crime → e.g. the socialisation of criminals
or capitalist exploitation
- Most theories of the reasons for crime do not offer solutions to crime
- Clarke’s solution → focus on the immediate crime and prevent it from
happening
- Most crime is opportunistic so preventing those opportunities will prevent
crime from happening
● Felson (2002)
- A crime prevention strategy for the Port Authority Bus Terminal NYC
- Was poorly designed and provided opportunities for deviant acts
- Examples → toilets were used for luggage thefts, rough sleeping, drug
dealing and homosexual promiscuity
1
, - Solution → re-shaping the physical environment (e.g. smaller hand basins to
prevent homeless people from bathing)
Displacement
● Chaiken et al (1974)
- Criticism of situational crime prevention → does not remove it, but
displaces it (target hardening means criminals will move to conduct deviant
acts where targets are softer)
- Several forms of displacement:
1. Spatial → moving elsewhere to commit crimes
2. Temporal → committing it at a different time
3. Target → choosing a different victim
4. Tactical → using a different method
5. Functional → committing a different type of crime
- Example → Britain and Suicide in the 1960s
- Half of all suicides were a result of gassing, and it came from highly toxic coal
gas
- By 1997, the gas had been replaced with less toxic gas and the suicide rate for
gas killing fell to zero
- Most people used gas to commit suicide, so there was no displacement (no
other known methods of committing suicide)
Evaluation
- Situational crime prevention works to some extent to reduce some crimes,
however, there is likely to be displacement
- Tends to focus on opportunistic petty crimes, and ignores white-collar and
corporate crime, which are more costly and harmful
- Assumes criminals make rational decisions → not likely with drug/alcohol-
induced criminals
- Ignores the root cause of crime (e.g. poverty) → difficult to develop long-
term crime prevention strategies
2
, Environmental crime prevention
● Wilson and Kelling (1982)
- Downes (1999) → ‘perhaps the most influential single article on crime
prevention ever written’
- ‘Broken windows’ → various signs of disorders and lack of concern for
others (e.g. begging, graffiti, vandalism, etc)
- If ‘broken windows’ are unrepaired, crime will continue as it seems as if no
one cares about the crimes committed
- Neighbourhoods → absence of both formal ASC (Agencies of Social
Control → e.g. the police) and informal control (the community)
- Police are only concerned with serious crimes, and the community feels
intimidated and powerless
- If no action happens then the area becomes a magnet for deviants, and people
try and move away from the area
Zero tolerance policing
● Wilson and Kelling (1982)
- Disorder and the absence of control lead to crime
- Solution → use a twofold approach/strategy
1. Environmental improvement strategy → broken windows need immediate
repair (e.g. towing of abandoned cars)
2. Zero tolerance policing strategy → Police must proactively tackle even the
slightest sign of disorder, even if it is not criminal (outcome → prevent
crime and reduce neighbourhood decline)
The evidence
● Wilson and Kelling (1982)
3
Crime prevention and control-sociologist list
Key:
Heheh-Sociologist Heheh-Important information
Situational crime prevention
● Clarke (1992)
- Situational crime prevention → a pre-emptive approach that relies, not on
improving society or its institution
- Three features aimed at situational crime prevention:
1. Directed at specific crimes
2. Involves managing/altering the immediate environment of the crime
3. Aim at increasing the effort and risks of committing a crime and reducing the
rewards
- Example → ‘target hardening’ measures such as locking doors and window
increase the efforts a thief needs to make, and increased surveillance in
shops via CCTV to increase the likelihood of shoplifters getting caught
- Rational choice theory of crime → criminals weigh up the costs and benefits
of acting out a crime opportunity before deciding whether to commit it
- Contrasts with other theories of crime → e.g. the socialisation of criminals
or capitalist exploitation
- Most theories of the reasons for crime do not offer solutions to crime
- Clarke’s solution → focus on the immediate crime and prevent it from
happening
- Most crime is opportunistic so preventing those opportunities will prevent
crime from happening
● Felson (2002)
- A crime prevention strategy for the Port Authority Bus Terminal NYC
- Was poorly designed and provided opportunities for deviant acts
- Examples → toilets were used for luggage thefts, rough sleeping, drug
dealing and homosexual promiscuity
1
, - Solution → re-shaping the physical environment (e.g. smaller hand basins to
prevent homeless people from bathing)
Displacement
● Chaiken et al (1974)
- Criticism of situational crime prevention → does not remove it, but
displaces it (target hardening means criminals will move to conduct deviant
acts where targets are softer)
- Several forms of displacement:
1. Spatial → moving elsewhere to commit crimes
2. Temporal → committing it at a different time
3. Target → choosing a different victim
4. Tactical → using a different method
5. Functional → committing a different type of crime
- Example → Britain and Suicide in the 1960s
- Half of all suicides were a result of gassing, and it came from highly toxic coal
gas
- By 1997, the gas had been replaced with less toxic gas and the suicide rate for
gas killing fell to zero
- Most people used gas to commit suicide, so there was no displacement (no
other known methods of committing suicide)
Evaluation
- Situational crime prevention works to some extent to reduce some crimes,
however, there is likely to be displacement
- Tends to focus on opportunistic petty crimes, and ignores white-collar and
corporate crime, which are more costly and harmful
- Assumes criminals make rational decisions → not likely with drug/alcohol-
induced criminals
- Ignores the root cause of crime (e.g. poverty) → difficult to develop long-
term crime prevention strategies
2
, Environmental crime prevention
● Wilson and Kelling (1982)
- Downes (1999) → ‘perhaps the most influential single article on crime
prevention ever written’
- ‘Broken windows’ → various signs of disorders and lack of concern for
others (e.g. begging, graffiti, vandalism, etc)
- If ‘broken windows’ are unrepaired, crime will continue as it seems as if no
one cares about the crimes committed
- Neighbourhoods → absence of both formal ASC (Agencies of Social
Control → e.g. the police) and informal control (the community)
- Police are only concerned with serious crimes, and the community feels
intimidated and powerless
- If no action happens then the area becomes a magnet for deviants, and people
try and move away from the area
Zero tolerance policing
● Wilson and Kelling (1982)
- Disorder and the absence of control lead to crime
- Solution → use a twofold approach/strategy
1. Environmental improvement strategy → broken windows need immediate
repair (e.g. towing of abandoned cars)
2. Zero tolerance policing strategy → Police must proactively tackle even the
slightest sign of disorder, even if it is not criminal (outcome → prevent
crime and reduce neighbourhood decline)
The evidence
● Wilson and Kelling (1982)
3
