Situational Crime Prevention - Research Proposal Example

Running Head: Situational Crime Prevention Situational Crime Prevention [Institute’s Situational Crime Prevention Introduction According to its definition, “situational crime prevention refers to opportunity reducing measures that are specifically directed towards certain forms of crime to make them more troublesome, risky and less rewarding in the perception of several offenders and that so by using management, design and manipulation techniques in a systematic way to tame the immediate environment” (Homel, 1998, pp. 26-27). There are many differences between the situational crime prevention theory and other theories related to criminal justice. When other theories regarding crime focus on the criminals, their backgrounds, motives, the relationship with the victim and other such elements, situational crime prevention theory departs radically from those mainstream criminology theories and focuses on the settings of crime. Situational crime prevention asks for taking a proactive action by forestalling the occurrence of crime through managerial and environmental changes in the surroundings that make it less attractive and more excruciating for the criminal to commit the crime. Rather than focusing on the criminal justice system, it focuses on the daily lives of people and their interaction with the surroundings, with buildings, schools, hospitals, parks, roads, streets, entertainment centers, businesses, pubs, and others (Siegel, 2011, pp. 214-215). There are three important underlying assumptions that have led to the creation of situational crime prevention. First, crimes are always concentrated in certain areas or hot spots and surveillance in those areas is more likely to lead better results in prevention of crime. Second, there are certain “hot products” which are the objects of most of the crimes and proper monitoring of those products may lead to lesser crimes. Third, there are certain people that may experience repeat crimes and offences (Hirsch, Garland, and Wakefield, 2000, pp. 85-89). Much of the development in the field of situational crime prevention in terms of coming with new preventive measures has stemmed from the efforts of entrepreneurs, administrators, and managers that were concerned with the increasing rates of crime and wanted to secure themselves and their business. It was very rare that government officials and criminologists encouraged and came up with new situational crime prevention techniques (Lab, 2010, pp. 74-75). This paper will attempt to explore the advantages and disadvantages of situational crime prevention while exploring many ethical, philosophical, criminological, and sociological dimensions related to the same. Discussion Advantages and Pros of Situational Crime Prevention Most criminal systems try their level best to provide the best possible compensation and treatment to the victims of crime, however, the fact is that many victims would prefer to have been protected from the crime in the first place rather than having to receive compensation and treatment for the same. In a society, where there are too many crime opportunities, that society is more likely to breed criminals and crimes (Homel, 1998, pp. 26-27). Furthermore, by providing open opportunities for crime, the society is makes it harder for the law enforcement agencies and the criminal justice system to punish and prosecute those people since they will have too much burden of the same. Nevertheless, with situational crime prevention, people see fewer opportunities to crime and even if they commit such crimes, it is highly likely that they would not be able to escape from taking the responsibility for the same (Smith and Cornish, 2003, pp. 20-24). Furthermore, the situational crime prevention theory emerged because of the two very basic shortcomings and neglects of the modern criminological theories. Most of them remain so concerned with explaining the personality, background, influences, motives, and other related factors that they end up avoiding the very important aspect of crime that is “opportunity for committing the crime”. In order to explain any crime, not only one has to understand the criminal mind, his or her traits, personality, motives and predispositions and factors that led him to the crime scene but it also requires detailed study of how certain factors act to create just the perfect opportunity of crime for people. Therefore, situational crime prevention theory helps in fulfilling these gaps in the modern criminology (Siegel, 2011, pp. 214-215). Second, most theories relate to criminology also fail to make a distinction between controlling crime and dealing with crime and believe that both of them are the same. These theories believe that the easiest route to reducing crime is by focusing on the repeat and potential offenders. Furthermore, crime control has been divided into two board categories of formal and informal social control (Tilley, 2002, pp. 41-43). Formal control includes the use of rules, regulations and informal social control relates to using education, group cohesiveness, and peer pressure. However, these theories end up avoiding the very important third dimension that relates to dealing with crime through decreasing its occurrence. In our daily lives, we employ guards; invest in alarm and security systems, lock our cars, windows, doors, homes, conduct extensive research while buying homes in certain neighborhoods and others (Clarke, 1997, pp. 165-168). As mentioned latter in the paper under the heading of disadvantages that at many instances, situational crime prevention merely shifts the incidence of crime from the rich to the poor and the middle class thus making them the soft and easy target. However, the fact is that there are many cases and examples where situational crime prevention by one community has also benefited the other community. Consider the example of use of LOJACK in New York. It was a vehicle tracking system consisting fixing a small transmitter hidden inside the car that would greatly facilitate the recovery of car. Since it was extremely troublesome for the thief to determine whether a particular car is equipped with the technology or not, the car theft decreased by more than 60 percent (Smith and Cornish, 2003, pp. 20-24). One of the most important benefits related to employing situational crime prevention techniques is that it diverts the responsibility from the federal or central governments to local governments, towns, municipalities, and buildings. Most of the investments in these techniques take place from the side of the individuals thus making them more responsible and aware about the surroundings and affairs of the society. Rather than taking a laid-back approach and blaming everything on the government, the citizens themselves take the responsibility; actively participate in securing their communities and work together to make their houses, societies, businesses and buildings more safer (Hirsch, Garland, and Wakefield, 2000, pp. 85-89). Disadvantages, Issues or Problems with Situational Crime Prevention When situational crime prevention theory first emerged onto the scene, it was no less than a nightmare for conservative libertarians and many other people who believe in liberty. They feared that with increased usage of satellite monitoring, X-rays to screen baggage, CCTV cameras, intruder alarms and others, the government would become more powerful it would provide the government with the opportunity to intrude in people’s lives that it should not have. It creates a “Big Brother” or totalitarian type of a state and diminishes the scope of private live and civil liberties (Maguire, Morgan and Reiner, 2007, pp. 430-432). Therefore, the implementation of situational crime prevention techniques requires a trade off for people between civil liberties and securities. Some people think that giving up their private life and civil liberties for their security for the sake of discouraging any perceived threat to life and property is a fair deal but many people, especially in western countries would resist the same on basis that they do not want anyone to intrude in their personal lives and homes. Therefore, its nationwide or worldwide application is never possible. This is also true because a significant portion of the measures taken under the umbrella of situational crime prevention are at the disposal private or business organisations and it is their prerogative whether or not they want to apply the same (Clarke, 1997, pp. 165-168). Another ethical criticism that situational crime prevention theory receives is based on its assumption of seeing all humans as deceptive, manipulative and having the potential to commit crime. The mechanisms in place to prevent crime scrutinize everyone and believe that anyone who gets even the slightest of the opportunity could commit crime. There are certain psychologists and sociologists believe that situational crime prevention is short-term and shortsighted approach to fight with crime (Tilley, 2002, pp. 41-43). We are only safe to the point where all the machines, approaches, and technologies put in place are working and in case of any disorder, power breakdown, or malfunction, we are once again on the mercy of the criminals that are all around us. Rather than creating this fortress society, the focus should be on creating a more ethical, upright and moral society where the upbringing of our children should be done in a way that they would disassociate themselves from all the crimes. Rather than investing so much in creating new technologies and mechanism to prevent crime, a portion of these funds should be diverted for putting every child into school and providing them with the education to differentiate between right and wrong and good and bad. The fact is that much of the situational crime prevention depends on technologies and machines that are never perfect. Consider the case of hackers and cyber crimes. Over the years, the security experts have tried to come up even more comprehensive barriers, encryptions and walls for cyber criminals (Lab, 2010, pp. 74-75). Every now and then, one criminal ends up finding a loophole in that technology or software and breaks into the system thus starting a new war between the security experts and the cyber criminals and this war is taking us nowhere (Maguire, Morgan and Reiner, 2007, pp. 430-432). Another criticism on situational crime prevention has its grounding in distributive justice. Over the years, it has appeared that it has only transferred the risk of crime from the rich to the middle class and the poor (Homel, 1998, pp. 26-27). In most communities, only the rich can afford the bulk of situational crime prevention technologies that they use to create gated communities within which there are wealthy residential enclaves thus alienating the middle class, working class, and poor from those areas. Furthermore, the when the rich are sleeping in their strong built forts and castles, the criminals might view the poor and the middle class as a soft and easy target and may end up targeting all their crimes towards them (Hirsch, Garland, and Wakefield, 2000, pp. 85-89). Conclusion The debate regarding the effectiveness of situational crime prevention is ongoing one. This is true because most of the experiments that have been designed to test the effectiveness of certain situational crime prevention measures are not conclusive or definite. This is true because testing for the effectiveness of situational crime prevention measures is different from the testing of effectiveness of drugs. It is extremely difficult to obtain placebo experimental groups or controlled situations. Furthermore, there is always a range of situational crime prevention techniques that are employed thus making it difficult to determine the percentage of effectiveness of each technique (Siegel, 2011, pp. 214-215). Moreover, there is always a range of social and societal factors that affects the use and results of situational crime prevention techniques and tracing those variables their impact, degree of contribution to disrupt the results often remains unknown. Nevertheless, despite its criticism, the use of situational crime prevention is widespread and even its vocal supporters agree to the fact that it has much room for improvement and development. Furthermore, most of the criticism that situational crime prevention has received is on the ethical and philosophical grounds and with the rapid rate with which technology is progressing, one can expect that soon experts will come up with a series of new technological innovations that could balance civil liberties with effective crime prevention (Maguire, Morgan and Reiner, 2007, pp. 430-432). References Clarke, R. V. G. 1997. Situational crime prevention: successful case studies. Harrow and Heston. Hirsch, Andrew V., Garland, D., & Wakefield, Alison. 2000. Ethical and social perspectives on situational crime prevention. Hart Publishing. Homel, Ross. 1998. The Politics & Practice of Situational Crime Prevention. Lynne Rienner. Lab, Steven P. 2010. Crime Prevention: Approaches, Practices, and Evaluations. Elsevier. Maguire, M., Morgan, R., & Reiner, Robert. 2007. The Oxford handbook of criminology. Oxford University Press. Siegel, Larry J. 2011. Criminology. Cengage Learning. Smith, Martha J., & Cornish, Derek B. 2003. Theory for practice in situational crime prevention. Criminal Justice. Tilley, Nick. 2002. Analysis for crime prevention. Criminal Justice Press. Read More