Crime Prevention in Context

Introduction

Experts the world over agree that crime prevention ie, preventing crimes from occurring is the best way forward in the fight against crime, as criminal justice agencies are increasingly failing to respond appropriately to crimes once they have occurred.

The traditional response to rising crime has been to devote more resources to law enforcement and to introduce tougher penalties in the hope of deterring offenders from committing further crimes. However, in recent years these so-called `offender-based' strategies have become less prominent, as `get-tough' policies involving harsher penalties failed to have the desired results.1 For these reasons, the focus in crime prevention research and policy has shifted from the actions and motives of offenders to the situation of victims and the reaction of the criminal justice agencies, with growing concern expressed about styles of policing.2

For a crime to occur, both an opportunity and a motive is needed. It follows that if a crime is to be prevented, both the opportunity and the motive must be removed or addressed. There are various ways in which opportunities for committing crimes can be diminished: a) by altering buildings and streets to improve opportunities for surveillance and lessen the vulnerability of targets or victims situational crime prevention; b) increasing citizens' concern over and involvement in crime prevention, and the neighbourhood in general community crime prevention; and c) using the police to support the above.3 Which approach is most relevant depends on the specific crime under consideration, as well as circumstances peculiar to the site where it occurs. Also, since crimes change, ways to prevent them must also adapt.

This paper will briefly examine short-, medium- and long-term strategies for preventing crime. It is recognised that such policies may need to go beyond the traditional concerns of the criminal justice system (ie police, the courts and prisons) if crime prevention is to be addressed in a comprehensive way.

Combating crime has been tackled in various ways throughout the world, with some strategies being more successful than others. With the process of formulating a National Crime Prevention Strategy (NCPS) high on South Africa's agenda, the wealth of international experience in crime prevention should not be ignored. Research, monitoring and objective evaluation of crime prevention policies and programmes, aimed at ensuring that limited financial resources are used most effectively, is a significant contribution which criminologists can make to the policy-making process. Systematic evaluation ensures that crime prevention programmes devised and implemented in countries facing similar levels of crime are adapted to local conditions. Drawing on other models must be approached with great caution, for differences in social, economic and cultural values between different countries may mean that policies which are successful on one side of the globe may be ineffective or inappropriate on the other. However, because many of the root causes of crime are similar, common strategies for preventing crime do exist.

It is generally agreed that the primary function of the police is to prevent crime. Britain's First Commissioner of Police declared in 1829: "The primary object of an efficient police is the prevention of crime; the next that of detection and punishment of offenders if crime is committed. To these ends all the efforts of the police must be directed. The protection of life and property, the preservation of public tranquillity and the absence of crime will alone prove whether the objects for which the police were appointed have been attained."4

Until recently, policing efforts in South Africa were primarily aimed at enforcing apartheid legislation, not at preventing crime. This largely reactive approach to policing has meant that the police have little experience of preventive interventions regarding crime. The transformation process within the police, as well as the limited resources available for carrying out their duties, will of necessity induce a greater focus on preventive measures.

The British example, where since 1965 all police forces have included a special crime prevention department, staffed by permanent officers, is of interest. Trained at the Home Office Crime Prevention Centre, these `crime prevention officers' are primarily physical security experts offering advice to public bodies, commercial firms and the general public on how to reduce the risk of falling victim to crime, as well as promoting community involvement in crime prevention, and emphasising the need for public support.

In order to use limited resources most effectively, the nature and extent of the problem must first be established. A democratic and successful way of achieving this is to conduct a victimisation survey. Since police statistics are notoriously unreliable as indicators of crime, victimisation surveys that elicit information from the victims on their actual experiences as well as their attitudes and concerns about crime have provided a broader, and arguably more accurate, source of information of the extent and nature of crimes in a particular area or society. In this way, such surveys provide the basis for a democratic discussion about the significance of different forms of crime, and by implication the allocation and distribution of resources.5 Until recently, no national victimisation survey has been conducted in South Africa, although this would be the most effective way of correcting the discrepancy between actual and recorded crime rates.6

An important finding of such surveys has been that a relatively small number of victims experience a disproportionate amount of victimisation. This finding has important implications for developing crime prevention strategies, for if one recognises that victimisation is concentrated among certain sections of the population, who tend to be victimised repeatedly, and that the best predictor of future victimisation is past victimisation, it becomes possible to pre-empt possible forms of victimisation. Intervention can be thus be constructed to protect victims and reduce vulnerability.7 Although new, this approach promises to make an important contribution to the formulation of effective crime prevention measures, for it provides an answer to the difficult question of how to target the most vulnerable victims, and provide a basis for intervention which is potentially both effective and objective.

But the police are not solely responsible for preventing crime, since many of the conditions affecting the incidence of crime lie outside their control. A broad range of social and economic factors affect the incidence of crime, and an effective crime prevention strategy needs to involve all actors from a broad spectrum beyond the ambit of the criminal justice system. Policy-makers interested in reducing crime have rarely dealt with broader aspects of the economy which is rather short-sighted, considering that social factors such as economic inequality, unemployment, poverty, racism and social disorganisation predict fluctuations in crime rates more reliably than factors based on police, courts or prisons.

Planning a crime prevention strategy involves a multi-pronged approach, ranging from crime analysis to programme development and implementation, and the evaluation of both impact and process. In Britain a decision-making tool to aid law enforcers and facilitate a more co-ordinated and systematic approach to crime prevention activities has emerged in the form of a procedure involving the following steps:

1. A thorough analysis of the situation in which the offence occurs, in order to establish the conditions (opportunities, motivations and legislation) that need to be met for the offence to be committed.
   
   

2. The identification of measures which make it more difficult or impossible to fulfil each of these conditions.
   
   

3. An assessment of the practicability, likely efficacy and costs of each of these measures.
   
   

4. Selection of the most promising measures.8

Crime prevention strategies can be crudely categorised as short-, medium- and long-term measures, each which will be discussed briefly.

Short-term measures

In the short term, situational crime prevention programmes where the immediate physical environment is restructured in order to reduce the opportunity for crime have shown some ability to reduce property crime. These programmes do not rely on long-term social improvements, but rather on reducing opportunities for crime within a specific area. As such they do not depend upon a government crime strategy, and can be implemented almost immediately.

These measures which include target hardening, deflecting offenders, employee surveillance, target removal, removing inducements, access control, formal surveillance (such as cameras), natural surveillance, identifying property and rule setting9 can be easily integrated into the design of an urban environment, thus making situational crime prevention most effective in relation to property crimes against businesses and communities. However, the cost of protecting property can approach the cost of losing it or diminish its value by restricting its use, for the preventive measure may be ugly or socially unacceptable.10

In using high-technology methods such as surveillance cameras, situational crime prevention methods must be careful not to displace crime, for if the motivation to commit crime remains unabated, offending may merely be displaced to another place or time, or to some other type of crime. Although recent crime prevention research has shown that it is possible to deflect the opportunistic offenders away from certain types of offences, little is known about the propensity of these offenders to select other targets, or to engage in other forms of offending.

However, the introduction of the situational crime prevention techniques of access control and formal and non-formal surveillance on two parking lots in England, followed by a two-year evaluation of improved lighting, blocked off entry points and natural surveillance, resulted in a reduction of almost 50 percent in total reported crimes. Testing for any displacement of these crimes to two nearby parking lots found that instead of this occurring, a `diffusion of benefits' took place instead, with both parking lots experiencing significantly less crime.11 In using high-technology methods such as surveillance cameras, situational crime prevention methods must be careful not to displace crime

It is worth noting that the displacement argument is often exaggerated, in that it tends to ignore the fact that offenders may be unwilling to use more extreme methods to commit more serious crimes, and also that the efforts involved in alternatives may be disproportionate to the rewards.12

Short-term crime prevention methods pursued in a crisis situation may also include deterrent strategies such as tougher bail conditions and harsher penalties. Also, better trained, more visible security personnel may help as a short-term measure for preventing crime.

Medium term measures

Medium-term measures for preventing crime include the formation of policing partnerships, as well as encouraging community and individual responsibility. Recognising that while the police and government should play a leading role in crime prevention, they cannot control or prevent crime by acting alone, these initiatives encourage the active co-operation of individuals, groups, and private, public and community sectors. Since crime prevention is no longer the monopoly of a particular agency, programmes are implemented under the auspices of a wide range of agencies, including law enforcement, education, welfare, employment and training, transport, telecommunications and grass-roots community groups. The aim of such partnerships is to bring together relevant agencies and interests, including the police, local authorities, community and voluntary groups and business, to consider the local crime problems and to devise and implement solutions through sharing information and devising the better use of resources. These direct initiatives address local crime problems and concerns more effectively, enhance public trust and confidence in the police, and depend for their success on agency co-operation. Successful crime prevention programmes focus on partnerships between agencies and citizens that influence the causes of crime, or modify the situations that provide opportunities for victimisation.

Steps towards the successful establishment of partnerships have been identified as:14

• obtaining local support;
  
  

• determining the scale of the operation;
  
  

• selecting a management structure;
  
  

• forming a steering group;
  
  

• appointing a co-ordinator/adviser/manager;
  
  

• funding core costs;
  
  

• building commitment;
  
  

• leading the partnership;
  
  

• acquiring skills; and
  
  

• developing capacity.

There are various levels of partnership, the lowest form being the traditional one of the community acting as the eyes and ears of the police. In this instance, members of the community provide information about crime, criminals, suspicious persons and undesirable conditions in their neighbourhoods. A second partnership role is that of cheerleader, intervening on behalf of the police in the political arena to support certain actions. The third role is a publicly supportive one, backing up the `warm fuzzies' with monetary assistance, coming largely, although not exclusively, from the business community. Finally, there is the statement-making role of the community, done in concert with police action or independently, where a community declares that it will not tolerate certain types of behaviour.15

Community police forums are another medium-term approach to crime prevention, involving police and citizens alike in addressing crime in local areas. In South Africa community police forums exist in many areas, but apathy, lingering mistrust of police and a lack of resources often mean these bodies cannot muster a proactive approach. However, the introduction of community policing and community safety plans, in line with international policing developments, bodes well for increasing co-operation from the public. Since the key to the establishment of viable crime control policies has been the flow of information from the public to the police, good policing requires the cultivation of a relationship between public and police.

Developing proactive strategies and closer working relationships with community representatives is effective, for even on a pragmatic level, policing without consent and a flow of information is inefficient and generally ineffective, involving a massive deployment of personnel and resources in order to cover all contingencies.16

However, research findings suggest that the successes of community policing are modest, and it appears that community policing does best in the areas that need it least.17 The danger exists that if the most effective community policing is seen to be in suburbs where financial contributions are readily made, it could prompt accusations that the rich are able to buy official protection while the less well-off are getting a rudimentary service.

In encouraging private initiatives to assist with crime prevention, the police also need to ensure that they maintain control of the resultant operations. The more stretched police resources become, the more citizens will want power to do things for themselves. As well-intentioned as private security might be, it can lead to vigilantism, and a further erosion of law and order.18

It has been argued that rather than fostering a belief that the community must somehow shoulder the burdens of controlling the dangerous elements by informal means, we should properly leave that type of confrontational work to the police. Self-protection schemes that have emerged range from having full police approval to having none at all, indicating a looming problem in the area of control over the application of law and order measures.19

Long-term measures

Crime prevention is generally understood to be a long-term project, for it involves addressing the causes of crime, thus eliminating motive from the equation. In the long term, crime prevention proposals must confront the uneven development factors that underlie the correlation between inequality and crime.20 To this end, crime prevention planners need comprehensive full employment policies to cope with the dangerous consequences of structural unemployment as well as underemployment, which incorporates extremely low-waged work, occasional work, and no work at all.21 Overseas research indicates that certain investments in job training and job creation programmes are more important than others, as they have multiplier effects for crime prevention in that individuals are channelled into work that counteracts criminogenic social conditions among the population at large. Clearly, job programmes that expand and upgrade the labour force, producing adequate housing, health care services, educational programmes and so on, have special relevance for crime prevention beyond simply providing jobs or income to buy these services.22

In South Africa, years of apartheid have led to huge discrepancies in living conditions and social development, making many South Africans more vulnerable to motives for committing crime. Long-term crime prevention measures therefore require socio-economic development as a strategy, to modify the socio-economic risk factors that may contribute to renewed offending. Such a strategy might include themes of family-based prevention, school-based prevention, community-based prevention and multi- and inter-agency action as the key factors.23

However, while there is ample evidence that social disadvantage plays an important part in the genesis of crime, it is doubtful whether some interventions aimed at addressing social conditions could ever be the whole answer to crime, because there are important categories of offences that have little to do with social disadvantage such as reckless driving, tax evasion and computer fraud.24

Crime prevention initiatives need to be effective, immediate and sustainable. Because crime reinforces itself, no long-term strategies against crime are feasible without having effective short-term initiatives already in place. Therefore, a national crime prevention strategy must have components with immediate effects, or face certain failure.25 International experience points to a comprehensive crime prevention strategy supported by national governments and driven at the local level, where strategies can be tailored to specific needs. Recommendations for the primacy of local authorities rest on the need for consistency in crime prevention programmes which local government can provide, since local agencies are better able to co-ordinate the activities of a variety of services.26 However, a lack of clear statutory responsibility for crime prevention on the part of local government may prove problematic, and any meaningful local structure for crime prevention must relate to the local democratic structure. Strategies that are most likely to succeed would therefore be those involving the local authority in the co-ordination of better and more comprehensive local services. These are often in marked contrast to central government initiatives, which are characterised by "opportunistic and haphazard identification of problems often undertaken without analysis in an effort to be seen to be doing something".27 South Africa must beware of a public relations exercise dressed up as a crime prevention policy.

When it comes to implementing effective crime prevention strategies, there are a number of vital factors that will ensure success. These include supporting national structures which promote partnerships, providing financial and technical support to local authorities, supporting policing and justice agencies in prevention, as well as encouraging individual citizens to participate. Does South African policy-makers' thinking on such issues currently support such factors?

Unlike other countries, South Africa had until recently not addressed the formulation of a national crime prevention strategy let alone a finished product. The absence of such an initiative has led to a growing lack of confidence in the government's ability or sincerity in addressing crime. Although the president and senior cabinet ministers have committed themselves to combating crime, provisional findings of a survey conducted among businesses reflect this lack of confidence. Fewer than 5 percent of business people interviewed found government initiatives against crime `very convincing', and 66 percent felt the initiatives were `not at all convincing'.28 However, given that a crime prevention strategy is to be adopted this year at national and provincial level, public confidence may grow.

In mid-1995 an eight-person strategy team involving the ministries of Defence, Correctional Services, Justice and Safety and Security was established to discuss the processes involved in developing a national crime prevention strategy. Criticism can be levelled at the composition of this task team, which, compared to its British counterpart, for example, reflects a traditionally narrow approach to crime prevention. Recognising the multi-pronged approach necessary to prevent crime, Britain's Working Group on Crime Prevention includes representatives from the crime policy planning unit, economic planning unit, Home Office research unit, inspectorate of constabulary, probation inspectorate, urban deprivation unit and the community programmes department.29

In December 1995 the cabinet approved the development of a draft Comprehensive National Crime Prevention Strategy, including:

• an integrated information system on suspects, convicted criminal and those who have been through the criminal justice system;
  
  

• studying the feasibility of a new identity system for citizens;
  
  

• strategies to deal with internationally based crime networks, which drive a lot of ordinary crime and robbery;
  
  

• addressing the lack of efficiency in the departments of justice, correctional services and the police; and
  
  

• special efforts to deal with crimes against women and children.

The NCPS has been conceptualised as a pillar of the national growth and development strategy, and is receiving priority treatment. Flowing from a recognition that crime prevention can only succeed when it is driven at the local level, provincial summits are being planned to formulate local responses to the NCPS once it has been approved by the cabinet.

In redirecting criminal justice planning towards crime prevention, the creation of some sort of administrative unit, perhaps in the president's office, Department of Justice, or, as suggested in American literature, the Department of Labour, is required. This unit would be devoted to crime prevention research and planning, giving top priority to identifying and offsetting structural trends that maintain crime. It has been suggested that such a unit should distribute funds to accelerate the development of a corps of crime prevention planners in government bureaux, universities and private institutes as well as catalysing the co-production of crime prevention strategies by citizen's groups, labour organisations, social movements and business associations.30

There is no reason why South Africa cannot follow examples such as New Zealand, whose Crime Prevention Unit is an integral part of the prime minister's office and has the following roles: 1) to advise the government on crime prevention strategy; 2) to do the planning, co-ordination, training and advising required to support the crime prevention strategy; and 3) to ensure a co-ordinated and co-operative approach between the central government, local authorities and community groups to permit the development and support of specific crime prevention initiatives.31 Another example worth emulating is that of the Netherlands, where in 1989 the ministry of justice set up a crime prevention directorate responsible for 1) promoting crime prevention by cities and business; 2) supporting the police force; 3) establishing victim policies; and 4) regulating the private security business.32

While the process of formulating a National Crime Prevention Strategy has been set in motion, it may take a while before South Africa, like South Australia, who notched up a world first by doing so, has a ministerial portfolio for crime prevention, thereby giving this the attention it deserves.

Notes and references

1. Schwendiger & Schwendiger, `Giving crime prevention top priority', Crime and Delinquency 39 (4), 1993, pp 425446.
   
   

2. R Matthews, `Crime prevention, disorder and victimisation: some recent western experiences', International Journal of the Sociology of Law 22, 1994, pp 87101
   
   

3. D A Lewis & G Salem, `Community crime prevention: an analysis of a developing strategy', Crime and Delinquency 27 (3), 1981, p 406.
   
   

4. F J Gladstone, Co-ordinating crime prevention efforts, Home Office research unit no 62, HMSO, London, 1980, p 3.
   
   

5. K Pease, Judgments of crime seriousness: evidence from the 1984 British crime survey, Home Office research unit no 44, HMSO, London, 1988.
   
   

6. A national crime survey has recently been conducted by the Nedcor project on crime, violence and investment.
   
   

7. Matthews, `Crime prevention, disorder and victimisation', pp 87101.
   
   

8. Gladstone, Co-ordinating crime prevention efforts, p 10.
   
   

9. Home Office, A practical guide to crime prevention for local partnerships, HMSO, London, 1993, p 4.
   
   

10. Gladstone, Co-ordinating crime prevention efforts, p 8.
    
    

11. B Poyner, `Situational crime prevention in two parking facilities', in R V Clarke (ed), Situational crime prevention successful case studies, Harrow and Heston, New York, 1992, pp 174184.
    
    

12. Gladstone, Co-ordinating crime prevention efforts, p 8.
    
    

13. P Graborsky, & M James, The promise of crime prevention: leading crime prevention programmes, Australian Institute of Criminology, 1995.
    
    

14. Home Office, A practical guide to crime prevention for local partnerships.
    
    

15. M E Buerger, `A tale of two targets: limitations of community anti-crime actions', Crime and Delinquency 40 (3), 1994, pp 416417.
    
    

16. R Matthews, `Crime Prevention, disorder and victimisation', pp 87-101.
    
    

17. Buerger, `A tale of two targets'.
    
    

18. `Keeping control', editorial in Business Day, 12 December 1995.
    
    

19. Ibid.
    
    

20. Schwendiger & Schwendiger, `Giving crime prevention top priority', pp 425446.
    
    

21. Ibid.
    
    

22. Ibid.
    
    

23. Crime Concern, Family, school and community: towards a social crime prevention agenda, Crime Concern, London, 1992.
    
    

24. Gladstone, Co-ordinating crime prevention efforts, p 9.
    
    

25. Stop Crime, A publication of the Nedcor project on crime, violence and investment, December 1995.
    
    

26. B Loveday, `Government strategies or community crime prevention programmes in England and Wales: a study in failure?' International Journal of the Sociology of Law, 22, 1994, pp 181202.
    
    

27. Ibid.
    
    

28. Stop Crime, A publication of the Nedcor project on crime, violence and investment, p 10.
    
    

29. Gladstone, Co-ordinating crime prevention efforts, p 7.
    
    

30. Business Day, 8 December 1995.
    
    

31. Schwendiger & Schwendiger, `Giving crime prevention top priority', pp 425-446.
    
    

32. International Centre for the Prevention of Crime, Newsletter, 1 (1), May 1995.