Community and Problem-Oriented Policing

1. Community and Problem-Oriented Policing Seventh Edition Chapter 6 Crime Prevention: Programs and Practices

2. Learning Objectives (1 of 2) 6.1 How the crime prevention concept evolved. 6.2How the concept of community and crime prevention relate to problem-oriented policing. 6.3 The meaning and functions of crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED). 6.4The meaning and value of situational crime prevention. 6.5 The roles of the contemporary crime prevention officer.

3. Learning Objectives (2 of 2) 6.6 How to evaluate the outcomes of crime prevention officer. 6.7The nature of crime displacement. 6.8 How to conduct a crime prevention publicity campaign. 6.9 Which crime prevention strategies work, do not work, and hold promise.

4. Introduction • Prevention of crime costs less than investigating and prosecuting a crime • Prevention was underappreciated • It has become more appreciated and more sophisticated • Police alone cannot prevent crime; the community must provide a collaborative effort

5. A Brief History ( 1 of 2) • Crime is a matter of motivation and opportunity • Crime prevention is not new, but has only recently become a means for combating crime • Chicago Area Project (CAP) 1931 • Based on Shaw and McKay’s theory of “social disorganization” • 1970s rise of community-based crime prevention programs • Neighborhood or Block Watch

6. A Brief History ( 2 of 2) • 1972 Oscar Newman coined the term “defensible space” • Design property that promotes a sense of safety • Cohen and Felson: Theory of Routine Activity Theory- Crime opportunity • Physical and social environments can create crime opportunities bringing the offender and a suitable target with an absence of a guardian against crime • Rational Choice Theory • “Broken Windows” Theory • Recent focus on attacking specific problems, places, and times: “Situational Crime Prevention”

7. Problem-Oriented Policing, Community, and Crime Prevention: A Symbiotic Relationship • Community-oriented policing and problem solving argues that there is a need to stop treating the symptoms of the problem (crime) • Prevention is needed • Physical changes to the environment can not stop a truly motivated offender and does not guarantee citizen involvement • Direct efforts to enhance active citizen involvement are necessary

8. Close Companions ( 1 of 2) • Crime prevention and police problem solving have six major points in common: • Each deals with the health of the community • Each seeks to address underlying causes and problems • Each deals with the combination of physical and social issues • Each requires active involvement by community residents • Each requires partnerships by law enforcement to be effective • Each is an approach or a philosophy rather than a program

9. Close Companions ( 2 of 2) • Community policing should be the foundation of any general crime prevention approach • Can provide important inputs to help focus crime reduction strategies • Engaging residents allows them to have more control • Police should develop relationships with individual citizens, businesses, social service agencies, and other criminal justice organizations

10. The Community’s Role in Preventing Crime and Restoring Anchor Points • Neighborhood cohesion is important • Shared concerns and strategies • Need for clear incentives and immediate rewards • Strong leadership, good communication, and recognition of volunteers’ efforts • “Anchor points”: schools, libraries, parks, medical facilities, commercial stores, churches • Need to make sure they are not crime generators (bars, pawn shops, etc.)

11. Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design: Designing Out Crime (1 of 2) • Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) has core principles: • Access control • Natural surveillance • Territorial reinforcement • Maintenance • Tempe, Arizona leader in “designing out crime”

12. Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design: Designing Out Crime (2 of 2) • 6 types of information considered for CPTED planning: • Crime data • Population characteristics • Institutional and organizational relationships • Land use and development • Traffic systems • Resident/user surveys or stakeholder interview

13. Second-Generation CPTED • Focus on the structures of family and behavior • Looks, additionally, at the social aspects of how neighborhoods work: • Size of the district, population density, and differentiation of buildings • Urban meeting places • Youth clubs • Neighborhood “tipping point” • Example: too many bars in too small an area

14. Situational Crime Prevention (1 of 3) • SCP draws from rational choice and routine activities theories • Referred to as a problem-solving approach to crime prevention • Seeks to eliminate crime opportunities • Environmental criminology approach

15. Situational Crime Prevention (2 of 3) • Seven principles of crime opportunity: • Opportunities play a role in all crime • Crime opportunities are highly specific • Crime opportunities are concentered in time and space • Crime opportunities depend on everyday movements of activity • One crime produces opportunities for another • Some products offer more tempting crime opportunities • Social and technological advancements produce new opportunities

16. Situational Crime Prevention (3 of 3) • Crime prevention goals divided into five primary objectives: • Increasing the effort needed to commit the crime • Hardening targets, controlling access, deflecting offenders, controlling facilitators • Increasing the risks associated with the crime • Entry and exit screening, formal surveillance, informal surveillance, natural surveillance • Reducing the rewards • Removing targets, identifying property, removing inducements • Reducing the provocations • Removing the excuses

17. Officers’ Roles • The mission of the crime prevention officer is to solve problems • Builds a sense of partnership with community agencies • Proactive work • Recognizes the importance of community input • Act as liaisons • Obtain and use grant money • Police officers need to know at least as much as the criminal knows

18. Conducting a Publicity Campaign • Crime prevention publicity campaigns target two main audiences: • Potential victims • Offenders • Dual approach can be used simultaneously to reduce potential victims and deter offenders • Police volunteers often distribute crime prevention materials throughout the community

19. Victim-Oriented Campaigns • Reaching victims: • Police can provide general information to residents concerning crime and its prevention • Police can advertise a specific community program they are undertaking

20. Offender-Oriented Campaigns • Relies on the notion that offenders are rational individuals who seek to maximize their rewards while minimizing their potential costs • Publicize the increased risk of being arrested • More efficient when the campaign targets a specific crime type in a specific locations • Offender may feel as though campaign targets them directly

21. Displacement of Crime and Diffusion of Benefit • Crime displacement is the idea that interventions result in the movement of crime to a different location, a new target, a change in the method to accomplish the crime, or change in the type of crime committed • Displacement may be reduced if alternative criminal behavior is not available or if the cost is too high for the offender • Displacement, according to research may not pose a major threat to crime prevention efforts • Diffusion of benefits is the opposite of displacement • Crime reduction that occurs in areas outside of areas of targeted crime prevention efforts

22. Evaluating Crime Prevention Initiatives • Evaluation of crime preventions is poor or nonexistent • Poorly conceived, marginally funded, and short-lived • Assessments require planning and effort • They can provide the police with valuable information • Can indicate the success or failure of crime prevention efforts

23. Crime Prevention: What Works and What Doesn’t • University of Maryland’s Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice reviewed 500 scientific evaluations of crime prevention practices and sent their conclusions to Congress • The following slides are their findings

24. What Prevents or Reduces Crime • Providing extra police patrols in high-crime hot spots • Monitoring known high-risk repeat offenders, reducing their time on the streets and returning them to prison quickly • Arresting employed domestic abusers • Offender rehabilitation programs that have the appropriate level of offenders participating • Offering drug treatment programs to prison inmates

25. What Does Not Appear to Be Successful ( 1 of 2) • Gun buyback programs • Neighborhood Watch programs • Arrests of unemployed suspects for domestic assault • Increased arrests or raids on drug markets • Storefront police offices • Police newsletters

26. What Does Not Appear to Be Successful ( 2 of 2) • Correctional boot camps • “Scared Straight” programs • Shock probation/parole and split sentences • Home detention with electronic monitoring • Intensive supervision on probation/parole

27. What Holds Promise (1 of 2) • Problem-solving analysis when applied to a specific crime situation • Proactive arrests for carrying a concealed weapon • Community policing with meetings • Field interrogations of suspicious persons

28. What Holds Promise (2 of 2) • Gang offender monitoring by community workers • Community-based mentoring by Big Brothers/Big Sisters of America • Battered women’s shelters