Crime Prevention And The Community
Contents
TOC o “1-3” h z u Background Information PAGEREF _Toc376456213 h 1Social and Situational Strategies of Community Crime Prevention PAGEREF _Toc376456214 h 4Theories of Crime vis-à-vis Social and Situational Strategies PAGEREF _Toc376456215 h 5Crime Prevention Theory PAGEREF _Toc376456216 h 6Strengths and Limitations of the Social Control Strategy PAGEREF _Toc376456217 h 7Strengths and Limitations of the Situational Strategy PAGEREF _Toc376456218 h 9Recommendations PAGEREF _Toc376456219 h 10Conclusion PAGEREF _Toc376456220 h 11References PAGEREF _Toc376456221 h 11
Background InformationPerhaps to tackle this topic in a more operational manner it is wise to start by elucidating the meaning of the term community and later on link it with the notion of crime prevention through social means, or rather through community-based means. For purposes of this paper, McMillan and Chavis (1986) definition and approach to the notion of a community will be adopted. In this regard, they perceived a community as the sense of neighbourliness that brings about shared emotions. In doing this, the two sociologists identified four core sociological pillars which they postulated are responsible for imparting the sense of cooperation among individuals comprising a community membership. Precisely, they singled out membership; integration; influence, and; shared commonalities as the four most pertinent issues that bring about the sense of cooperation and the desire to co-exist peacefully. In this regard, a community can be described as a collective term that refer to a social setting whose composition is persons committed to veering out of their personalized desires to collectively work with others for purposes of fulfilling common goals of mutual togetherness and posterity (Bachrach & Zautra, 1985).
On its part, crime prevention entails a series of conscious efforts and/or strategies employed by concerned persons/authorities to curb the occurrence of criminal acts by eliminating the causal agents to such criminal activities. In essence, such efforts may originate from within or even beyond the affected areas. For instance, members of crime invested neighbourhoods may formulate community-based initiatives to help fight such social disorders. On the same note, the government as it is in most cases may initiate programs aimed at mitigating the social causes to crime (Brantingham & Brantingham, 1993). Consequently, the notion of community crime prevention entails the conscious involvement of members of a community in crime prevention drives. As Rosenbaum (1998) asserts, it entails the increment of the overall, “participation of individual citizens, small groups, and voluntary community organizations in activities designed to reduce crime and to improve the quality of neighbourhood life” (p.324). In a nutshell, community crime prevention is hinged on the notion that members of a community are better positioned in preventing criminal acts in their own community as they tend to understand the situational determinants to such criminal acts, better than “outsiders” (Clarke, 1997).
Perhaps the notion of community crime prevention may be misinterpreted as tantamount to usurping the powers of the police. However, drawing from deeper analysis of the meaning and context of community such fears may successfully be allayed. In this regard, a community as explained above by McMillan and Chavis (1986) as well as from Bachrach and Zautra (1985) standpoint implies a group of persons committed to solving common problems through partnering with others. Precisely, this urge to take active roles in altering threatening situations in the community is brought about by the strong sense of community, where members’ involvement in activities such as holding community days, taking part in demonstrations, attending meetings may be used as the benchmark to determining the degree of collaboration and togetherness (Bachrach & Zautra, 1985).
In this regard, though there is no doubt that the prevention of crime is the work of the police, giving a hand in such endeavours underscores the notion of good neighbourliness where everyone should be directly responsible of what they do to themselves and to others (Idriss et al, 2010). After all, the end results of such collaborative endeavours are reduced loss of property and lives and expected quality standard of living (Rosenbaum, 1998). Most importantly, community crime prevention teaches people worthwhile living manners particularly as pertains to their roles in encouraging delinquent behaviours. This is because it has been observed that most criminal acts are not planned in advance but just happen at the spur of time as result of careless behaviours such as leaving the windows to a house opened or even leaving the doors of a car unlocked. In this regard, members of a community, can “indirectly” aid the police in fighting/preventing crime by helping to reduce the risks of crime by ensuring that their properties are carefully kept in situations that do not attract easy breach of security. For instance, people should not use their full names in telephone directories or even on the door plate; instead they should use their surname and initials to avoid telling their genders. In so doing, the ever overstretched police departments can be accorded ample time in dealing with more serious security breaches (Reducing the Risk of Crime, 2010).
In understanding, how community crime prevention works it is better to first understand the idea of community safety. In layman’s terms, community safety can be defined as overall feeling of being secure among community members, particularly in the pursuance of the four core elements of a community as delineated by McMillan and Chavis (1986). Basically, a safe community is characterized by higher quality of life as members can freely and safely pursue their socio-political and economic obligations with relative ease. In this regard, community safety can be successfully inculcated through community-based crime prevention initiatives capable of indentifying and successfully mitigating the causes to delinquent behaviours. Ideally, members of a community can only be confidence about their safety if they take part in initiating such safety (Reiss & Roth, 1993). Precisely, Reiss and Roth (1993) assert that community safety is the benchmark for overall socio-economic and political progress made by a given people. This is because if there is relative peace and security in the community, persons will tend to work towards achieving the envisaged collective goals quality living standards. On the other hand, if there is disorder and chaos in the neighbourhood the social bonds between members will be loose and hence vulnerable to opportunistic delinquent behaviours such as drug trafficking, mugging, and street violence will proliferate (Clarke, 1997).
Even so, it is also wise to acknowledge the fact that chances of achieving absolute community safety are almost zero. This is because as it is normally very hard to detach the impacts of perpetual security breaches such as violence from the residents particularly if such residents are not involved in the actual process of creating community safety (Reiss & Roth, 1993). In this regard, community crime prevention interventions should not only aim at fighting the actual criminal acts but instead should indentify the causal factors to such crimes. For instance, as it has been noted in many communities the lack of jobs as well as deepening poverty levels may result in increased street violence and drug abuse. As such, as part of community crime prevention interventions should aim at creating alternative economic opportunities especially for the young generation (Brantingham & Brantingham, 1993).
Social and Situational Strategies of Community Crime PreventionBasing on Crawford (1998) postulations, two broad strategies of community crime prevention can be drawn out: These are social/communal and situational/environmental strategies. As the name implies, the social strategy entails imparting new behaviour codes among community members through the use of social methods while on the other hand, situational strategy entails change by remodelling the environments within which members of a community interact during their daily chores. The gist of these two strategies is that majority criminal activities carried out by the youth are performed while in groups, an indicator that the social environments have got a huge impact on the level of crimes committed. In this regard, a combined social and situational approach can indeed change the existing criminal activities patterns. On his part Clarke (1995), asserts that situational crime prevention is guided by the need to reduce the actual opportunities that lead to criminal acts. It achieves this by increasing the risks to such crimes while also reducing the potential proceeds expected thereof. To this end, situational crime prevention encompasses three basic elements of theoretical framework, standard methodology, and the envisaged opportunity reducing procedures. In this regard, this approach must also investigate the crime generation trends by indentifying the offender recourses as well as the way they are technically distributed. As Ekblom and Tilley (2000) assert, studying the offenders’ resources as well as their distribution, it becomes very easy to eliminate the opportunities leading to crime. Perhaps this is one of the practical ways that differentiates situational crime prevention approach and other conventional methods of combating crime.
Theories of Crime vis-à-vis Social and Situational StrategiesSocial Control Theories: From a crime prevention standpoint, the central premise behind the social control theories is that, all forms of social delinquency are by-products’ of , “weakness, breakdown, or absence of those social bonds or socialization processes that are presumed to encourage law-abiding conduct” (Jensen, 2003, p.1). Ideally, social control theories “accord primacy to relationships, commitments, values, norms and beliefs that are purported to explain why people do not break laws as compared to theories according primacy to motivating forces thought to explain why people do break laws” (p.1). As Jensen (2003) further elucidates, if people can successfully internalize some of the worthwhile behaviour codes and apply them in their daily chores they can greatly suppress the urge to commit social delinquencies. Reiss (1951) offers that social control theories commit themselves in advocating for self-imposed or even society-imposed methods that helps to keep individuals away from committing crimes. Specifically, he argues that, social control theories are about personal control which he defined as “the ability of the individual to refrain from meeting needs in ways which conflict with the norms and rules of the community”(p.196). In delineating the society-imposed control, Reiss (1951) offers that, it is “the ability of social groups or institutions to make norms or rules effective” (p.196). In this regard, it can be broadly asserted that the ability to shun bad behaviour is greatly determined by both personal and societal control mechanisms that are fueled by the broad self-images that persons or group of persons may hold. If for example, individuals perceive themselves as good members of the society they will less likely indulge themselves in social delinquency even in the face of tempting environments (Jensen, 2003).
The most prominent social control theorist in the Twentieth Century, Travis Hirsch, viewed the motivations as natural to human beings that no special forces were necessary to explain law-breaking. Law-breaking is often the most immediate source of gratification or conflict resolution, and no special motivation is required to explain such behaviour. Human beings are active, flexible organisms who will engage in a wide range of activities, unless the range is limited by processes of socialization and social learning. On the other hand, many control-oriented theorists do introduce motivating forces, pressures and pulls into their explanations. However, such motivations are viewed as sufficiently common, diverse, transitory and situational that more explanatory power is to be gained from focusing on the barriers or constraints that inhibit law-breaking outcomes than attempting to discern specific motivating forces. Rather than being generated by one or a few dominant forces, the motives for delinquency are depicted as quite diverse, ranging from instrumental needs (stealing when one is poor and hungry) to emotional rage, frustration, and sheer thrill and excitement. However, since most people are ―motivated to break laws at one time or another, a focus on motives does not explain who will commit criminal and delinquent acts (Briar & Pilavin, 1965).
Crime Prevention TheoryThis theory entails all the conscious attempts made to reduce the three elements of crimes, that is, the desire, ability, and the opportunity to commit crime (Clarke, 1997). The theory calls upon all members of the community to take part in acting to prevent the occurrence of criminal acts rather than attempting to stop them when they occur. This is achieved through the identification of the crime hot spots as well as the likely factors that lead to delinquency and acting proactively to ensure that proper mitigation measures are carried out. As opposed to the social control theories, crime prevention theory does not concentrate on the behaviours traits of the criminals rather; it aims to make associate higher risks to delinquent behaviour by enhancing sustained screening of persons in crime prone zones, making targets hard to hit, deflecting offenders, as well as controlling access to facilities. Another major discrepancy between these two theories is that, crime prevention theory holds that in most cases crimes are not committed as a result of premeditated plots but rather they are encouraged by negligence, for instance, leaving the office lights on at night might exposes valuable office equipments to burglary.
Moreover, as Clarke (1997) asserts, crime prevention theory aims at reducing the potential rewards (if any) to delinquent behaviour, reducing excuses to such acts, as well as reducing the provocations that might occasion social disorder. This can be achieved through denying the families of incarcerated criminals to enjoy the proceeds of such delinquent behaviours, denying any form of contacts to hardcore criminals, suddenly removing targets from public view, initiating peer-group education, teaching the youth alternative ways of handling stress, discouraging bad imitation, controlling access to dangerous weapons and drugs, as well as involving the members of the community in drawing “ground rules.”
Strengths and Limitations of the Social Control StrategyWhile acknowledging that “some delinquent behavior results from a combination of positive learning and weak and ineffective social control” Nye (1958, p.4), opined that a wide range of controls can be employed in mitigating delinquent behavior. Precisely, he opined preventing crime through social control method has more benefits particularly among the young children whom he claimed can be taught good manners by their parents through punishments and rewards. These sentiments are shared by Hirchi and Gottfredson (cited in Einstadter & Henry, 2006) in his postulations that, delinquent behavior in old age is wholly dependent on the quality of interactions between young children and their parents. Using the notion of self-control which by extension is also determined by the quality of childhood upbringing, Hirchi and Gottfredson (cited in Einstadter & Henry, 2006) argue that persons with poor childhood experiences and hence low self-control are most likely to “enjoy the quick and easy and ordinary pleasures of crime without undue concern for the pains that follow from them” (p.190).
In this regard, Nye (1958), Jensen (2003) and Hartmann and Depro (2006) assert that a comprehensive social crime prevention program should comprise of some or all of the following elements: Civic education on the ills of social delinquency; Guidance and counselling to the young children and youth; Community get-together occasions such as tree planting days; Community-wide support for vulnerable persons, e.g. disabled, sick, marginalized etc; Imparting parenting skills to young parents; Stepping up campaigns against drug abuse and violent behaviours; Holding community level sporting competitions; Imparting job-specific skills such as plumbing, masonry etc.; Availing free medication services for those with body complications such as free eye check-up, free dental care; Providing shelters/homes for the homeless and old; Integrating community crime prevention in school curriculum, as well as; Providing flexible and meaningful education to the young children so as to make them happy and constructive members of the society.
Even so, Idriss et al (2010) assert that for social control strategy to work out successfully, the above listed elements must be provided throughout the “year” and to the whole community as opposed to a case where it is rolled out only for a few months and to selected individuals. Nevertheless, they acknowledge that due to the problem of limited resources the envisaged fruits may not be fully realized. In this regard, they postulate that the issue of huge implementation costs should not arise, as the long-term benefits for crime prevention interventions outweigh any costs incurred thereof. In support of this postulation, they single out both the direct and indirect savings that emanate from crime prevention interventions. For instance, when the crime rates are low, little money is used in processing criminal litigations, taking crime victims to hospital, or even replacing stolen and/or vandalized property. However, Idriss et al (2010) warn that, due to the lengthy period of time that such benefits may take to be fully realized, many people may feel that the high costs are not commensurate with the returns.
Strengths and Limitations of the Situational StrategyAs opined in the preceding sections of the paper, situational strategy aims at reducing the opportunities that cause social delinquency. In this regard, the installation of CCTV along crime prone areas, engaging more police officers, building protective walls around residential homes, as well as building more prison facilities to accommodate more social delinquents, may reduce crime rates. However, such impacts may just be short lived as criminals may as well move on to other places probably where such crime reduction measures are yet to be rolled out. As such, it is reasoned that crime can only be reduced if such interventional measures directly address the core reasons as to why individuals commit such crimes. In this regard, it is hereby held that unlike the costly social control measures, situational strategies come at very minimal costs (if any) despite them being very effective particularly when they are initiated by qualified personnel, in the right amounts and at the most opportunistic time, in this case at the early stages of growth. Precisely, young persons who grow up knowing that crime does not pay, and are imparted with worthwhile vocational skills can shun crime in their adulthood (Idriss et al, 2010). Tellingly, situational crime prevention approach entails a collective strategy that aims at combating a wide range of crime-causing opportunities, ranging from, internet frauds and pornography, car hijackings, domestic squabbles, street violence and mugging, kidnapping, as well as other conventional crimes (Clarke, 1997).
Even so, this approach has got its “lee-ward” side. Precisely, though it has been pursued by many criminologists and sociologists its fruits have never been fully utilized given the escalating crime rates all over the world (Idriss et al, 2010). Although, it is a fact that it has succeeded in reducing crime rates to a certain percentage, it is yet to achieve optimum results. In this regard, some of its most notable hindrances include, technical and administrative snags were some of the envisaged procedures such as installing the top quality anti-burglar deadlocks are not fully implemented due to lack of enough funds or even lack of enough skills to implement the procedures. Again, the use of high security measures such as smart ATM cards have occasioned extreme vandalism on the part of criminals in frustrations when they learn that they cannot use them. Other hindrances are extreme provocation as a result of severe measures against robbery such as the fortification of ATM machines occasioning the use of petrol bombs by robbers to blow them out. Again, there may be cases of sabotage on the part of security personnel particularly in monitoring too many CCTV systems (Hope & Murphy, 1983).
RecommendationsBased on the extensive accounts presented in this paper regarding the two crime prevention strategies it is hereby held that, situational approach is the most appropriate for fighting crime at the community level. This decision is occasioned by the fact that delinquent behaviour is partly occasioned by the prevailing opportunities as presented by the socio-political, economic, and cultural environments. In this regard, altering the environment is the most appealing crime prevention measure and not altering the social dispositions of the individual criminals as advanced by the social crime prevention measures (Bottoms, 1990). In this regard, so as to combat delinquent behaviours, crime prevention should not be personalized; rather intervention measures should aim at singling out the specific environmental crime causal factors and working towards reducing their ability to bring about bad behaviour.
ConclusionBased on social control theories as well as the crime prevention theories presented in this paper it is wise to conclude that individuals are less likely to engage in delinquent behaviour if the socio-political, economic, and cultural environments they live in are agreeable to such behaviours. In this regard, community-level as well as national-level groups should endeavour to actively engage the members of the public in the process of creating sustainable peace and security among their neighbourhoods. In this case, there should be community-based interventionist programs that not only engage the residents in directly fighting crime, but most importantly teaching such residents worthwhile skills that they can utilize in carrying out productive activities such as talent shows as well as income generating activities. Most importantly, for community safety to be enhanced there should be community role models to whom young children can look upon in forming and upholding positive behaviour codes. To this end, it is hereby held that community crime prevention should start right from the individual homes. As such, parents should set good moral examples to their young children.
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