Crime prevention

Crime prevention involves actions taken before a crime happens to lower the chances it will occur. It includes a range of methods—such as those focused on development, the immediate setting, community efforts, and the justice system—that target risk factors at the individual, family, community, and societal levels. The goals are to discourage potential offenders, limit opportunities for illegal acts, and reduce public fear of crime. Governments use these strategies to lower crime rates, enforce laws, maintain the justice system, and support overall stability.

Studies

Research from criminologists, commissions, and bodies like the World Health Organization, the United Nations, the U.S. National Research Council, and the UK Audit Commission shows that policies to lower interpersonal crime rates are most effective when they go beyond law enforcement. These experts agree that reducing risk factors is more cost-effective and brings greater social benefits than punishment alone. Public opinion polls also show support for investing in prevention. A criminology professor drew on this research in a 2006 book to suggest specific crime-reduction measures and propose a crime bill.

The World Health Organization’s 2004 guide, building on its 2002 World Report on Violence and Health and a 2003 World Health Assembly resolution, recommends governments follow nine steps: create and monitor a national violence prevention plan; improve data collection on violence; set research priorities on causes, costs, and prevention; promote primary prevention; strengthen support for victims; integrate violence prevention into social and educational policies to advance gender and social equality; boost collaboration and information exchange on prevention; support international treaties and laws that protect human rights; and seek global agreements on the drugs and arms trades.

Research bodies agree that local municipalities are best positioned to organize strategies that reduce risk factors. The European Forum for Urban Security and the U.S. Conference of Mayors emphasize that municipal programs should address the needs of at-risk youth and women. Success depends on cooperation among key agencies, including schools, job creation programs, social services, housing authorities, and law enforcement.

For a crime to happen, several factors must come together: a person or group must have the desire or motivation to break a rule; some participants must have the skills and tools to commit the act; and an opportunity must be available and taken.

Types

Primary prevention targets individual and family factors linked to later criminal behavior. At the individual level, factors like attachment to school and involvement in positive activities lower the chance of criminal involvement. At the family level, consistent parenting also reduces risk. These risk factors add up—the more present, the greater the risk.

Some initiatives aim to change crime rates at the community level. For example, a 1993 study on policing domestic violence showed that changing how police respond to such calls affected the likelihood of repeat incidents. Policing known crime areas reduces the number of reported crimes there. Other efforts include community policing to catch known offenders, and programs like America’s Most Wanted and Crime Stoppers help apprehend criminals.

Secondary prevention focuses on youth at high risk of committing crime, especially those who drop out of school or join gangs. It targets social programs and law enforcement in high-crime neighborhoods, where crime is often tied to social and physical problems. In cities like Birmingham and Bogotá, secondary prevention led to major drops in crime and violence. General social services, schools, and police working with at-risk youth have significantly reduced crime.

Tertiary prevention occurs after a crime has taken place to stop further incidents. Examples include new security policies put in place after terrorist attacks, such as those following September 11, 2001.

Situational crime prevention reduces opportunities for crime. Techniques include making crimes harder to commit and riskier for offenders.

Crime prevention through environmental design

Crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) uses the natural and built environment to cut down on crime opportunities. Popularized by criminologist C. Ray Jeffrey in the United States, CPTED applies tools like good lighting, street-facing windows, and minimal high barriers or obstructions to lower both the perception of crime and the chance to commit it.

Introduction and description

Situational crime prevention (SCP) is a preventive approach that reduces crime opportunities. First outlined in a 1976 British Home Office report, SCP focuses on the setting of a crime, unlike most criminology, by examining the circumstances that allow specific types of crime.

Understanding these circumstances allows changes to the environment to reduce opportunities. SCP aims to make criminal acts less attractive to offenders. It relies on opportunity-reducing processes that target particular forms of crime, alter the immediate environment in an organized and lasting way, and make crime less appealing.