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Crime prevention strategies - Coggle Diagram
Crime prevention strategies
Right realism
Causes of crime
One crime leads to more severe crimes
If the first broken window is not punished harshly, more crime will happen
Wilson and Kelling - broken window theory (environmental crime prevention)
Solutions to crime
Each individuals member of the community should take care of their community
Clean, graffiti free environment
Reducing communal areas / making them nicer to be in helps to prevent crime
Communitarianism (environmental crime prevention)
AO2
Zero tolerance policing
Punish minor crimes harshly, so that more severe crime won't happen
AO2
In New York, cars with vandalism were taken off the road immediately and could only be returned when cleaned
Forced individuals to take responsibility for their car / community through communitarianism
Kelling - clean car programme
Analysis (AO3)
Clean street with no graffiti - 13% stole money
Street with graffiti - 27% stole money
Kaizer et al - letterbox experiment (environmental crime prevention)
Street with litter - 25% stole money
Evaluation (AO3)
Crime rates were falling before zero tolerance policing
Allows police to use their power and label individuals
Young - zero tolerance success is a myth for politicians and police to take credit for falling crime
Only explains street and petty crime
Ignores structural causes of crime (eg. poverty)
Chaiken - displaces crime rather than stopping it
Gives police power to discriminate and marginalise (eg. stop and search)
Doesn't explain what caused the first broken window
Solutions to crime
Felson
Reduce crime by designing crime out
Anti homeless benches, preventing vagrancy
Public toilets aren't isolated / well lit / busy areas
AO2
Home office 'don't advertise your homes'
Fences, locking windows, drawing blinds
Makes it harder to commit crime
Evaluation (AO3)
Assumes people make the rational choice to commit crime
Katz and Lyng - crime is thrilling, and people are constantly 'flirting' with the boundary
Ignores white collar crime / corporate crime
Left realists - doesn't deal with the causes of crime (poverty, unemployment)
Only reduces certain types of crime, like petty street crimes (vagrancy, theft)
Gill and Loveday - very few robbers, burglars, and shopkeepers are put off by CCTV, so situational crime prevention doesn't always stop crime being committed
Chaiken et al
Temporal - happens at another time (eg. night)
Target - happens to another victim (eg. less protected)
Spatial - happens somewhere else (eg. less protected area)
Tactical - change how crime is committed (eg. weapon use)
Target hardening doesn't stop crime, but rather displaces it
Functional - change type of crime (eg. online rather than in person)
Causes of crime
Clarke's rational choice theory - crime is calculated
Individuals weigh up the consequences and rewards of committing crime
Individual is responsible for crime, not structures
Overview
Conservative party / neoliberal policies
Zero tolerance policing
Crime is a real and growing problem - destroys communities and undermines social cohesion
Target hardening
Uses statistics, that are accurate and valid
Environmental crime prevention
Offers solutions that are practical
Left realism
Overview
Still believe that crime statistics are valid in the patterns and trends to conclude based on them
Crime is a serious and growing problem
For example, unemployment, poverty, racism
Lea and Young - the root causes of crime are structural
Stop crime using democratic policing, multiagency approach, welfare system
Solutions to crime
Social and community crime prevention and policies aimed at tackling the root cause of crime
New Deal - policies that target the long term unemployed and precarious workers with retraining and education programmes to help them get a job
Sure start - provided cultural capital to W/C families (eg. parenting lessons, toys, books)
Minimum wage (£12.21 from April 2025
EMA - £30 / week offered to attend school after 16
Pupil premium / FSM - reducing relative deprivation
Evaluation (AO3)
Not really applicable
New Deal, Sure Start and EMA don't exist anymore
Most of these were abolished
Lea and Young - policing and control
Multiagency approach - family, education, social services, NHS are collectively responsible for policing society
For example, PREVENT for radicalisation by teachers and social services, so not only the police responsibl
Police should be made more accountable to the public
Social and community crime prevention
Workplace / government are also responsible
Other agencies are respinsble to help reduce crime, not onlt police policies
For examoke, FSM, EMA, New Deal
Matthew and Young - square of crime
Everyone's perspective needs to be considered when creating policy to tackle crime
Public should be involved in policy making within the police force
Offender, victim, state, public
All should be held equally responsible for deciding the punishment and making policy to tackle crime
Evaluation (AO3)
Doesn't work in practice as some individuals do not want to help the police
For example, Liverpool is known for not trusting the police after Hillsborough disaster, where fans were blamed for the incident
Too idealistic / romanticised when looking at violent crime like murder
Eg, Olivia Pratt Korbal - 8 year old shot in gang fight
Expensive for it to work
New Labours approach (1997 - 2010)
Curfews and dispersal orders - break up groups of 2 or more people (Separate and Dispersal Act 2004)
ABCs - acceptable behaviour contracts given to young offenders to help reform them
ASBOs - targetted W/C youth for committing minor and petty crimes (eg. vandalism, disturbing the peace at night)
Parenting contracts - parents of poorly behaved children, teaching parenting skills and forced to attend classes if the child continued misbehaving
Tony Blair - Labour is the party of law and order in Britain 'tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime'
Right realist and Left realist approach in policies (eg. zero tolerance policies is right, and parenting classes are left)
Evaluation (AO3)
Only focuses on petty / minor / street crime
Althusser - ideological / repressive state apparatus through parenting orders / curfews
Disproportionally targets EMs and W/C youth
Doesn't target root causes of crime - more reactionary than preventative
Most of these policies were abolished as the aim stopped working (eg. ASBOs were seen as badges of honour)
Evaluation (AO3)
Henry and Milankovich - problem with Realist approaches is that they rely on the state's definition of crime
If a transgressive approach is taken, then this would allow white collar crime to also be prevented
Relies on quantitative data, which mainly highlights petty / violent crime, EM, and W/C crime, ignoring other types of crime
Relative deprivation - doesn't explain why some W/C individuals don't commit crime
Focuses on inner city areas only, ignoring crime in rural areas