Situational crime prevention as a key component in embedded crime prevention.

• Author: Brantingham, Patricia L.
• Position: Includes text in French - Canada

Cet article traite de la prevention des situations criminogenes, une demarche en pleine evolution. Les auteurs proposent que l'on etudie dans une perspective situationnelle les approches dernierement utilisees au Canada en matiere de prevention du crime. Ils explorent egalement comment la description articulee de la prevention des situations criminogenes peut etre utilisee pour trouver des moyens de mesurer l'impact de programmes de prevention du crime donnes et pour integrer la prevention du crime dans la gouvernance generale.

Introduction

Canada has a well-established tradition in crime prevention at the provincial, territorial, and national levels. During the last 20 years it has been a relatively straightforward task to divide Canadian crime prevention into four categories: legal prevention; social prevention; social development programs; and situational prevention (Brantingham 1986, 1989; Brantingham and Brantingham 1988, 1990). Over that period of time, our understanding of crime has improved in its grasp of the complexities of criminal events, separating out immediate situations from the underlying social and physical fabrics that influence crime and victimization over differing periods of time (Brantingham and Brantingham 1993, 2001). Canada's social and cultural diversity creates the need to think of crime prevention as a complex phenomenon but, at the same time, to use a conceptual framework that makes it feasible for researchers and practitioners to compare and contrast specific programs. This article provides information about the evolving field of situational crime prevention and proposes that the situational perspective be used to understand recent crime prevention approaches in Canada. The article also explores how the articulated description of situational crime prevention can be used in developing ways to measure the impact of specific crime prevention programs and in finding ways to embed the crime prevention process into general governance.

We have separated crime prevention approaches into legal, social, community, and situation categories in the past (Brantingham and Brantingham 1990) and described in more detail crime prevention approaches that use architecture and urban planning as place improvement processes that reduce crime by reducing the crime attractiveness of areas and by reducing crime generators (Brantingham and Brantingham 1995, 1997). These earlier articles on crime prevention programs have emphasized situational design approaches to reducing crime. This has involved trying to describe to criminologists how urban planners, health planners, and urban designers work towards reducing crime potential, nuisance behaviour, and fear in public and private spaces (Barclay, Buckley, Brantingham, Brantingham, and Whin-Yates 1996; Brantingham and Brantingham 1988, 1998; Rondeau, Brantingham, and Brantingham in press).

From the theoretical perspective of our Crime Pattern Theory (Brantingham and Brantingham 1993), we have always taken the position that crime is a complex phenomenon with a complex aetiology. We suggest that, with an increased awareness of the complexity and diversity of Canadian life, those interested in crime prevention begin to look at crime in its complexity and orient their view of crime prevention to reflect this complexity. Much traditional crime prevention, of course, has focused on offenders, to the exclusion of the other elements of criminal events in their full complexity. Many of these efforts have taken the position that crime can be understood in simple terms and addressed from some single programmatic perspective. The results of this approach have often been disappointing and have rendered promising programs vulnerable in competition for continued funding from governments over time (see, e.g., Moynihan 1969; Poyner 1993; Sherman, Gottfredson, MacKenzie, Eck, Reuter, and Bushway 1998).

In adopting an appreciation of the complexity of criminal events, crimes can be seen as products of a filtering process that channels some people to sites and situations amenable to criminal behaviour. Crime prevention planners need to consider the characteristics of crime-amenable sites and situations; the things that draw or push people (particularly youth) towards these sites and situations; what equips such people to take advantage of the criminal opportunities offered by these sites and situations; and what constitute the immediate triggers for actual criminal actions (Brantingham and Brantingham 1993; Ekblom and Tilley 2000). This filtration process accounts for the observed fact that very small proportions of criminal offenders, victims, and sites are involved in very large proportions of all crimes (Sherman et al. 1998; Spelman 1995; Yu 2004). In considering crime from this perspective, those interested in crime prevention should begin to look at how and why people develop routines that bring them into a crime-potential context and how the filter process is influenced by friendship networks, socio-economic conditions (particularly relative deprivation), and individual conditions or situations.

Situational crime prevention is the crime prevention planning process using this filter as a guide to constructing complex interventions aimed at the immediate prevention and reduction of criminal events. This has the effect of keeping many potential offenders out of the criminal justice system in the first place (because they never offend) and of breaking the cycle of recidivism by changing the community contexts into which offenders are released at sentence expiry in ways that reduce temptations and opportunities to reoffend. Situational prevention efforts can accomplish this while remaining compatible with and complementary to longer-term developmental prevention programs (Brantingham 1986; Brantingham and Brantingham 1988, 1990; Canadian Criminal Justice Association 1989; Farrington, Sampson, and Wikstrom 1993; Welsh and Farrington 1998; Wikstrom, Clarke, and McCord 1995). Note that there should be consideration of pre-criminal situations (Cusson 1993).

When crime is viewed in its full complexity, crime prevention programs can address prevention at a general level, with programs aimed at everyone; address prevention in more vulnerable contexts by reducing the attractiveness of crime or the generators of crime in those contexts; or address the immediate needs of extant crime problems by reducing reoccurrence. These three categories are usually called primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention (Brantingham and Faust 1976; Lab 2004): primary prevention looks at underlying factors that may have negative long-term consequences; secondary prevention addresses individuals, places, and situations at high risk of becoming involved in criminal events; and tertiary approaches are responses to existing situations for individuals, groups, or places that are already part of a crime pattern. This article also addresses what needs to be done to embed or incorporate situational prevention within regular government activity. While the crime or victim issues may change, embedding is an evaluative approach that determines "what works" and "what does not work." Determining "what works" is different for primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention approaches. The orientation towards selecting good programs is frequently called evidence-based policy and planning. Evidence-based programming is important in crime prevention and public safety.

Prevention models

Primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention

As noted above, crime prevention is usually divided into three categories first developed by Brantingham and Faust (1976): primary, secondary, and tertiary. Primary prevention approaches reducing crime by addressing underlying factors that have a basic influence on everyone, shaping people, sites, and situations that are amenable to criminal events. These may be basic sociological influences such as social disorganization or lack of social cohesion; they may be basic psychiatric conditions or economic pressures; they may involve the fundamental physical design of cities. Primary crime prevention is directed towards physical, socio-psychological, and economic conditions that promote crime and fear generally.

Secondary prevention focuses more narrowly on individuals, groups, or social conditions or physical settings known to be at high risk of becoming involved in criminal events. An example of this is the "Wise Owl" program in British Columbia, which seeks to provide education to the elderly concerning various types of "senior-specific" frauds, such as telemarketing fraud and home renovation scams. This program trains seniors in the community by reaching out to those at risk and providing them with information to help them avoid being victimized and to give them advice about protecting their assets. Secondary prevention includes specific programs for children with parents who have a history of criminal activity or child abuse; for example, it may address the creation of school programs to keep socially disadvantaged children at school after classes end. Secondary prevention also includes education programs specifically designed for groups at risk.

Tertiary prevention is directed towards the prevention of criminal event recurrence. Tertiary prevention includes, for instance, physical modification of repeatedly victimized buildings, offender rehabilitation programs, help for those seeking to exit the sex trade, restorative justice, site-specific law enforcement, or hot-spot deterrence programs such as the Bait Car program. (2) An example of a tertiary approach is the Capital Region Action Team program in Victoria, BC, on the Prevention and Early Intervention of Sexually Exploited Children and Youth, which focuses on children and youth 12 to 18 years old who have been newly recruited into prostitution. Youth entering the sex trade present a number of common risk factors, including histories...