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Crime Prevention and Control (Displacement (Chaiken et al (1974) (Found…
Crime Prevention and Control
Situational crime prevention
Ron Clarke
Situational crime prevention as 'a pre-emptive approach that relies, not on improving society or its institutions but reducing crime opportunities
Directed at specific crimes
Involve managing or altering the immediate environment of the crime
Increasing effort and risks of committing crime and reducing rewards
Target Hardening
Locking doors and windows increase the effort for burglar needs to make
Underlying situational crime prevention approaches is an 'opportunity' or rational choice theory of crime. View that criminals act rationally, weighing up costs and benefits of a crime opportunity
Contrasts theories of crime that stress 'root causes' we would have to transform the socialisation of large of numbers of children that carry out a revolution.
Clarke argues most theories offer no realistic solutions to crime. The most obvious thing to do, he argues, is to focus o the immediate crime situation.
Displacement
One criticism of situational crime is that they don't reduce crime; they simply displace it.
Chaiken et al (1974)
Found that a crackdown on subway robberies in New York merely displaced them to the streets above
Spatial- moving elsewhere to commit crime
Temporal- committing it at different time
Target- choosing a different victim
Tactical- different method
Functional- committing a different type of crime
Evaluation
Works to some extent in reducing certain kinds of crime. Most measures there is likely to be come displacement
Focus on opportunistic petty crime. It ignores white collar, corporate and state crime, costly and harmful.
Assumes criminals make rational calculations. Unlikely in many crimes of violence and crimes committed under the influence of drugs or alcohol
Ignores root causes of crime, poverty or poor socialisation. Makes it difficult to develop long term strategies.