Crime Prevention and Comunity Safety - Research Paper Example

Crime Prevention 1. Introduction Before going into the details of effective crime prevention strategies, let’s get a better understanding of what crime prevention actually is. Crime prevention is an attempt to either prevent the crimes or reduce the level of criminal acts in any specific area or a country. Crime prevention is extremely important for the safety and security of the public. Reducing the risk of being a victim is the basic objective of crime prevention. Crime prevention means to reduce the crime rate and event disorders through implementation of effective crime prevention strategies [Tilley: 2005]. Crime prevention involves design and deploying of protective people, processes, and strategies [Hayes: 1997]. These strategies are implemented in various judicial and extra judicial settings. It is the one of the prime responsibilities of every country’s government to take proper measures in order to reduce the level of crimes in the country because crimes and violence not only make the lives of the public insecure but also proves to be a risk regarding economy of a country. Implementation of crime prevention strategies plays a great role in the successful prevention and reduction of crime levels in a country. These strategies not only help the government in reducing the level of crimes but also help in generating the sense of security in the public living in any specific society. 2. Ultimate Goal of Crime Prevention The ultimate goal of crime prevention is to provide the people with a reliable security by eradicating the element of crime from the country. In order to achieve the goal of crime prevention, it’s necessary to put an end to those specific factors or opportunities which enable a criminal to take advantage of and get involved in any specific criminal activity. The main goal of crime prevention is not only to secure the lives and properties of the public but also to eliminate those reasons which act as the root cause for the unlawful activities. Crime prevention occurs in a country when the government of that country takes appropriate steps to prevent or reduce the risk of victimization by effectively increasing the risk of being caught. It is one of the main goals of crime prevention to reduce or remove the opportunities for criminals from the country, and this goal can be achieved by increasing the desire among the public to act as the contributor to the improvement of society. An important task for every government should be to create the fear of punishment in the minds of criminals in order to prevent them from getting involved in any sort of criminal activity. Fear of punishment can not be injected in the minds of criminals rather such steps should be taken which should practically detain the criminals in order to create a risky environment for criminals. Crime rate in small part of a country puts a negative and fearful impact on the whole country. People avoid going to those areas where there is no protection of life and property because security is always the first priority for every individual. It is the major responsibility of the internal security department of every country to apply such crime prevention strategies which should effectively remove the element of fear from the minds of the public. Without the implementation of successful crime prevention strategies, no government can ever be successful because trust and belief of the public in the government act as the foundation of a successful government, and the government fails when it becomes unsuccessful in achieving the trust of people by providing them with required level of safety and security. So it is very important for the government to take appropriate measures in order to ensure the safety and security of the public. 3. Elements of Security Elements of security mean by those rudiments or factors which have a direct relationship with safety of the public. An important element of security is physical security. We all know that in these days crime rate in almost every country is reaching its heights and not a single person can call himself purely safe from any sort of crime. We must also take proper security measures on our own in order to prevent ourselves and our properties. These measures include installation of security alarms, putting obstacles on gates of organizations, hiring security guards from private security agencies, and building fences so as to stop criminals from entering private buildings. Information security element is also a critical element of security which can not be sidelined. In the present era, the world has become global village. All the records of any organization, business, or individuals are saved on the computers to be retrieved when needed. The threat to this element is increasing day by day as hackers are getting more and more expert in destroying or deleting important files from someone’s personal computer by sending viruses and retrieving private information of any organization from their websites by hacking those websites. The measures that can be taken to avoid this include installing efficient anti-virus applications in order to maintain internet security. There are a lot of effective anti-virus applications which prohibit hackers from entering or hacking any personal computer. So, these were some of the basic security elements which should be taken into consideration and proper steps should be taken to avoid all types of security hazard. 4. Why is Crime Prevention Important and How Can it be Reduced? Importance of crime prevention can never be denied. It is critically important to implement crime prevention strategies in order to remove the crimes from the society. The main benefit which comes from the implementation of crime prevention strategies is removal of the fear of crimes and violence from the minds of the people. Crime prevention also helps in creating awareness in the criminals about the consequences of being involved in criminal acts. Another major benefit is that of rise of economy. If we want to reduce the level of crime rate, we must implement a well planned crime prevention strategy in order to get desirable results. If we talk about crime displacement, we should say that types of crimes and the suspected places for crimes should be explored thoroughly in order to reduce the occurrence rate of displaced crimes. Wide scope of a study in terms of types of crimes and places reduces the thinner the patina of displaced crime [Barr & Pease: 1990]. The security department of any country should take steps to understand the controversies regarding crime displacement. It is important because situational proponents consider crime displacement as the primary challenge to crime prevention [Cornish & Clark: 1987]. Some effective crime reduction factors include educating society regarding consequences of crimes and reducing poverty. Education plays a very effective role in crime prevention as it creates awareness among the public regarding the negative outcomes of crimes. Another important factor which is very effective in crime prevention includes reduction in level of poverty in any specific country. Poverty acts as the root cause for any criminal act because when people do not get the basic necessities of life, they get engaged in criminal activities to get revenge of their disabilities from other people around them. Crime prevention also has a direct impact on the rise of economy of any specific country. As we know that economy of a country rises when foreign and local people invest in the projects of that specific country. So when the level of security will be high in a country, investors will not get hesitated in investing in the projects of that country. 5. Different Types of Crimes and their Prevention Strategies Crimes are not just related to any specific field of life, rather they cover almost every aspect of life which include technological crimes, juvenile crimes, property theft crime, public order crime, domestic violence, racial hate, religious hate, anti-social behavior, rape and sexual assault, robbery, kidnapping, and white collar crimes. All of these types of crimes need different prevention strategies depending upon the nature of the crime. Crime prevention strategies are those strategies which help the government of any specific country in reducing the crime rate in the country. Following are the crimes and their related strategies which have proved to be very beneficial in the reduction of various types of crimes in most of the European and American countries: 5.1 Robbery This is a kind of criminal hazard. This hazard can happen within a house, bank or any other financial institution. Thieves can enter any alone house where there is no security mechanism or they can also enter a bank to get some money by using force. Ramifications for this kind of hazards can be made to apply an efficient security mechanism. There are a lot of security devices which can be used to avoid it .e.g. security alarms, fences and obstacles. 5.2 Kidnapping Kidnapping is also a type of criminal hazard where criminals kidnap a person and then ask his relatives to pay some money in order get their person released safely. Kidnapping is a violent crime and leaves a fearful and traumatic impact on the mind of the victim. Ramifications can be made by keeping a laser gun, a personal security technology, which is used to seize or lesser down any person’s movement when he tries to grab or kidnap other person. 5.3 Juvenile Crime Juvenile crimes are those crimes which are committed by the young adults who are less than 18 years of age. In the United States of America, the age of young adults who can perform criminal acts varies from state to state and ranges from age group of 16 to 20 years. There are various social and economic factors which result in promoting criminal and offensive behavior in the young adults. These factors include poverty, loneliness, disorganized family structures, and some other factors. Some children get involved in various serious crimes like assault, homicide, robbery, arson, auto theft, vandalism, and rape. The most common juvenile crimes include theft, drug abuse, bullying, and disorderly conduct. Juvenile crimes have been successfully reduced in the United States of America over the last decade as the result of implementation of various effective crime prevention strategies. 5.3.1 Effective Strategies Regarding Reduction in Juvenile Crime Reduction of juvenile crimes is also important in a sense that if young adults are not prevented from committing criminal activities at an earlier stage, the criminal behavior will continue to increase in them which will result in making them serious offenders and criminals with the passage of time. Following are the ways which proved to be very helpful over the last two decades in successfully reducing the juvenile crimes: 5.3.1.1 Giving Proper Attention The government of United States of America created awareness among the public regarding effective juvenile crimes prevention strategies. The most important strategy which proved to be successful was educating the parents about the need of giving proper attention to their children so that the children don’t feel neglected. If a child starts feeling neglected, negative feelings and emotions start growing in the mind of the child which results in rudeness and rough behavior in dealing with others. Serious offenses become very rare if the children get required love and attention from their parents. Parents should maintain balance between their work life and family life in order to give proper attention and love to their children. Meetings between parents and the teachers of children are also very important in order to know the behavior of children with class fellows and teachers. 5.3.1.2 Recreational Activities Recreational activities are also very helpful in the reduction of juvenile crimes. When the children get involved in various entertaining activities like playing their favorite games, they do not get any time to get involved in the criminal activities. It is the responsibility of the parents to give time to their children and get them involved in the purposeful and healthy activities instead of leaving them on their own. 5.3.1.3 Reducing Poverty The government of any country should take proper measures in order to decrease the level of poverty. Poverty is also one of the significant root causes of juvenile crimes. For example there is a society in which all children go to school. But there is also a child in that society whose parents do not have enough money to pay the school fee so they do not get their child admitted in the school. Now that child will feel inferiority complex and it will give birth to various criminal behaviors in that child. But when there will be no poverty or scarcity of resources, poor families will also be able to get their children admitted in the schools which will result in creating feelings of equity among the children. 5.4 Technological Crimes Technological crimes are those crimes which are related to the negative use of technology in order to get several personal favors which include obtaining money illegally, deleting important records from a company’s database, and obtaining private information from a website. Technological crimes made their notable appearance with the rise of internet as most of the technological crimes are done by using internet. In today’s world, use of technology is of extreme importance in almost every aspect of our daily life. But the use of technology has given rise to the element of crime as criminals also make use of technology to improve their criminal skills and activities. Criminals make use of technology in a lot of ways in order to carry out different criminal activities. Some of the most observed crimes related to the use of technology in a negative way include internet bank fraud, email scam, credit card fraud, online auction fraud, and domain hijacking. There are a lot of prevention strategies regarding technological crimes and these strategies have proved to be very effective for the prevention of technological crimes over the last decade. Some of these strategies are as follows: 5.4.1 Spam Blocker Spam blocker is an application which is used to prevent unwanted emails from coming into our personal computer. Spam blockers have proved to be very successful in preventing fraudulent and deceptive emails. 5.4.2 Anti-virus Programs Computer professionals have developed such anti-virus applications which prevent the viruses from accessing our precious and valuable data. Those anti-virus applications are used to scan the computer in order to detect and remove the identified viruses from the computer. 5.4.3 Use of Firewall Another useful technique for prevention of computer crimes includes window’s firewall protection. Firewall protection prevents the hackers from attacking the computer by identifying the identity of the requesting application. If the application is found suspected, firewall prevents it from entering into the computer. 5.5 Neighborhood Crimes Neighborhood crimes involve those criminal acts which go against the social norms and values. For the government of any country, reduction in the neighborhood crimes is one of the most important indicators of the country’s economic stability. Neighborhood crime prevention strategies need to be implemented in order to provide the people with a safe and secure living environment. Neighborhood crimes put a very fearful and frightening impact on the minds of the people. Neighborhood crimes flourish more rapidly at those places where the population turnover is high as compared to low population places. Neighborhood crimes mostly involve the crimes like stealing something from a person’s house and violent crimes like damaging other person’s property. These crimes exist in almost all countries of the world. That is why some prevention techniques are also implemented in all such countries where neighborhood crime rate is very high. 5.5.1 Use of Criminal Justice System One of those techniques which have proved to be very successful involves the use of the criminal justice system. The criminal justice system is used in order to arrest and deter such people who are suspected to be involved in the crimes. The offenders are not only arrested by the police officials but also they are given punishment depending upon the nature of crime in which they are involved. 5.5.2 Situational Crime Prevention Another effective method for the crime prevention over the last two decades was that of reducing the opportunities for the criminals. Crime rate definitely goes down when the criminals do not see any considerable opportunity [Ekblom & Tilley: 2000]. It is known as situational crime prevention in United Kingdom and the United States of America. Situational crime prevention technique helps in reducing the crime opportunities by improving the physical security of the people and the buildings. Situational crime prevention strategy focuses on preventing the occurrence of crime by reducing the opportunities regarding crimes available to the criminals [Clarke: 1997]. In situational crime prevention strategy, those factors, opportunities, and issues are tackled which act as the root cause for crimes. Situational crime prevention is not only useful in crime prevention but also it is helpful in reducing the crime rate by bringing in the sense of morality and ethics in the criminals. Criminal justice and situational crime preventions strategies are concerned with building prisons, installing CCTV, putting blocks at the entrances of high security places, and police crackdowns at suspected places which result in reducing the risk of criminals’ access to the properties of the public. 5.5.3 Social Crime Prevention Social crime prevention is another method used to prevent neighborhood crimes. The basic goal of social crime prevention technique is to reduce the level of motivation in the criminals to perform any sort of crime. Motivation is one of those influencing factors which play a major role in carrying out a criminal act. This prevention technique has proved to be very successful because it involves such programs which help the criminals coming back to normal life instead of putting their lives in risk. 5.6 White Collar Crimes White collar crimes are referred to as such crimes which are committed by those persons who are at some higher rank and they misuse their authorities in order to get some financial gains or personal favors. We can also say that white collar crimes are committed by businessmen who are either in the government or in bureaucracy. White collar crimes are not violent in nature; rather they involve such crimes which are committed for various financial purposes. White collar crimes are considered to be an offense which is less punishable as compared to violent crimes. But it does not mean that white collar crimes do not harm the people, rather they affect a lot of people in the long run. Some common types of white collar crimes include bankruptcy fraud, embezzlement, medical crime, computer crime, corruption, black mailing, bribery, counterfeiting, extortion, cellular phone fraud, pension fund crime, charity fund crime, forgery, financial crimes, and occupational crimes. White collar crimes are not violent but their consequences are sometimes even more than the violent crimes. The government of any country needs to make a professional approach towards white collar crimes prevention because a lot of white collar crimes remain undetected due to the influence of people at higher ranks. White collar criminals generally include those people who already have a high status in the society. These people include government servants, business people, bank officers, bureaucrats, politicians, and entrepreneurs. 5.6.1 Prevention of White Collar Crimes Prevention of white collar crimes does not seem to be possible but the governments of American and European countries have been successful in reducing the white collar crime rate through implementing such policies which restrict the higher officials from accessing the private records. Although the white collar crime rate has decreased in United Kingdom and United States of America over the last decade but we can not say it a very notable decrease. The reason is rise of technology which has made it easier for the criminals to access the private records of the banks, organizations, and other financial institutions. The strategies which have proved to be successful in the reduction of white collar crimes are Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED) and Crime Prevention through Awareness and Procedural Design (CPTAPD). People get involved in white collar crimes when they see that the chances of getting caught are very less as compared to the benefits of crimes. The governments of American and European got success in reducing the white collar crimes by setting up the corruption free systems. These systems helped the countries in dealing with the four basic components of white collar crimes which included money, greed, trust, and opportunity. Corruption free systems include such mechanisms which hold the managers and the directors accountable for any sort of white collar crime. These systems have proved to be very effective in a sense that they have helped the governments creating awareness among the people regarding the detection mechanisms for white collar crimes. 5.7 Violent crimes Violent crimes are those crimes in which the offender makes use of violence in order to get personal favors. The violent crimes include murders, homicide, manslaughter, sexual assault, abduction, robbery, and false imprisonment. Carrying out an unlawful physical attack on some other person is referred to as violent crime. Violent crimes also include sexual abuse in which the offender uses his power to get involved in sexual activity with another person without any mutual consent. Violent crimes not only physically injure a person but also leave a fearful impact on the mind of the victim for the rest of life. Violent crimes turned out to be the most critical security issue in whole world during the 1990s. Various prevention strategies were implemented in order to reduce the violent crime rate. In the United Kingdom, the rate of violent crimes was at its peak in 1995 but it was due to the implementation of effective crime prevention strategies that made it fall down by 49% in 2005. Let’s discuss those crime prevention strategies which proved to be successful in reducing the level of crime rate over the last two decades. 5.7.1 Prevention Strategies for Violent Crimes The basic strategy for the prevention of violent crimes included several preventive measures which were implemented on regional, national, and in primary, secondary and tertiary areas. It was basically European crime prevention measures which were later on implemented by several American and Asian countries. The main objectives of the crime prevention measures were to suppress the level of poverty, reduce violent crimes, eliminate socially pathological behavior from the criminals, reduce crime opportunities, create awareness among the public regarding personal safety measures, and increasing the risk of interception among the criminals. The preventive measures included in the strategy were social measures, situational measures, public awareness, and building of implementation capacity. Social measures included bringing change in the unpleasant social and economic environment of a country in order to reduce the crime rate. Situational measures included removal of the opportunities available for the criminals in order to ensure a crime-free environment. Next security measure included creating awareness among the public regarding personal safety. The people were educated about the fact that police can not always be successful in dealing with personal security as violent crimes just take a few minutes to be committed and police takes some time to reach the place of incidence, so the public should apply personal safety measures like security alarms and laser guns in order to reduce the crime risk. Last preventive measure included in the strategy was strengthening the crime prevention measures by making required improvements in the implementation of the strategy. So these were the crime prevention measures which were taken by the government of different countries in order to reduce the level of crime rate. Conclusion Summing it up, crime prevention is extremely important for the safety and security of the public. Reducing the risk of victimization is one of the basic objectives of crime prevention. Crime prevention should be one of the prime responsibilities of the government of any country because it not only makes the lives and properties of the public secure but also puts a positive impact on the economy of a country. There are a lot of effective crime prevention strategies which proved to be successful in reducing the level of crime rate over the last two decades. The present governments of all countries should not only implement those effective crime prevention strategies but should also make required improvements in those strategies in order to make them more effective for the reduction of crime rate in the world. Bibliography D. Cornish & R. Clarke, “Understanding Crime Displacement: An Application of Rational Choice Theory,” Criminology, V.25(4), 1987 N. Tilley, Handbook of Crime Prevention and Community Safety, (2005) P. Ekblom & N. Tilley, “Going Equipped: Criminology, Situational Crime Prevention and the Resourceful Offender,” British Journal of Criminology, V.40(3), 2000 R. Barr & K. Pease, “Crime Placement, Displacement and Reflection,” in M. Tonry & N.Morris (eds), Crime and Justice, (1990) R. Clarke, Situational Crime Prevention: successful case studies, (1997) R. Hayes, “Retail Crime Control: A New Operational Strategy,” Security Journal, V. 8(3), 1997 Read More