Crime Body 1/5/03 10:37 Am Page 3
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
crime body 1/5/03 10:37 am Page 3 Turning the tide crime, community and prevention Jon Bright Open access. Some rights reserved. As the publisher of this work, Demos has an open access policy which enables anyone to access our content electronically without charge. We want to encourage the circulation of our work as widely as possible without affecting the ownership of the copyright, which remains with the copyright holder. Users are welcome to download, save, perform or distribute this work electronically or in any other format, including in foreign language translation without written permission subject to the conditions set out in the Demos open access licence which you can read here. Please read and consider the full licence. The following are some of the conditions imposed by the licence: • Demos and the author(s) are credited; • The Demos website address (www.demos.co.uk) is published together with a copy of this policy statement in a prominent position; • The text is not altered and is used in full (the use of extracts under existing fair usage rights is not affected by this condition); • The work is not resold; • A copy of the work or link to its use online is sent to the address below for our archive. By downloading publications, you are confirming that you have read and accepted the terms of the Demos open access licence. Copyright Department Demos Elizabeth House 39 York Road London SE1 7NQ United Kingdom [email protected] You are welcome to ask for permission to use this work for purposes other than those covered by the Demos open access licence. Demos gratefully acknowledges the work of Lawrence Lessig and Creative Commons which inspired our approach to copyright. The Demos circulation licence is adapted from the ‘attribution/no derivatives/non-commercial’ version of the Creative Commons licence. To find out more about Creative Commons licences go to www.creativecommons.org crime body 1/5/03 10:37 am Page 5 Contents Acknowledgments 7 Crime prevention and community safety – a definition 9 10 Summary Introduction 12 1. Crime, prevention and protection 16 2. Demolishing myths 25 3. Towards prevention: a framework for local action 38 Early childhood prevention 45 Opportunities for young people 53 Safer neighbourhoods 70 4. Developing a local strategy 81 5. Towards prevention: national policy, local governance 91 Conclusion 110 Appendices 1. Note on crime statistics 114 2. Selected crime statistics tables 116 Notes 120 This page is covered by the Demos open access licence. Some rights reserved. Full details of licence conditions are available at www.demos.co.uk/openaccess crime body 1/5/03 10:37 am Page 6 Acknowledgments This book draws on the work of many academics, policy makers and prac- titioners, whose contributions I hope are adequately referenced. In partic- ular, I would like to acknowledge the following: my colleagues at Crime Concern, especially Kevin Gill, Oliver Goode, Tony Holden, Sohail Husain, Margaret Mary Kelly, Julia Stafford, Leslie Silverlock, Pamela McAllister and Nigel Whiskin; John Graham and Gloria Laycock of the Home Office; David Farrington of the University of Cambridge; Nick Tilley of Nottingham Trent University; Steve Osborn of the Safe Neighbourhoods Unit; David Utting of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation; and David Hawkins and Richard Catalano of the University of Washington, Seattle. This book is influenced significantly by visits to the United States in 1990-91, sponsored by the Commonwealth Fund of New York Harkness Fellowships Programme, and in 1996, sponsored by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. I am very grateful to both organisations for making those invaluable visits possible. It is also informed by contacts with other European countries, notably France and the Netherlands, and with Australia. I would like to thank the following for commenting on earlier drafts of the book: Tony Butler, Chief Constable of Gloucestershire; Paul Ekblom and John Graham of the Home Office; Kevin Gill and Nigel Whiskin of Crime Concern; Geraldine Petterssen, Associate Consultant with Crime Concern; and Perri 6, Research Director of Demos. Their comments helped me to improve it considerably. They are not of course responsible for its overall style or conclusions. The book’s focus is residential neighbourhoods, their schools and busi- nesses and the prevention of offending and anti-social behaviour by young people. It does not address ‘hidden’ crimes (such as domestic violence) or ‘white collar’ crime. These are important topics that require separate and detailed attention. It does not deal in detail with the work of the criminal justice agencies to prevent re-offending although many of the measures it advocates will support their efforts. Its main argument is 6 Demos This page is covered by the Demos open access licence. Some rights reserved. Full details of licence conditions are available at www.demos.co.uk/openaccess crime body 1/5/03 10:37 am Page 7 that the criminal justice system is not very good at preventing crime, clearing up crime, enhancing community safety, deterring offenders or rehabilitating those who are convicted. Criminal justice policy needs to make a decisive shift towards prevention. There is growing evidence that it would be successful, better value for money and popular. Jon Bright March 1997 Demos 7 This page is covered by the Demos open access licence. Some rights reserved. Full details of licence conditions are available at www.demos.co.uk/openaccess crime body 1/5/03 10:37 am Page 8 Crime prevention and community safety – a definition Crime prevention seeks to reduce the risks of criminal events and related misbehaviour by intervening in their causes. It acts at many levels in society, from institutions to the individual, to influence both offenders and immediate crime situations. It may focus on the general population of offenders or targets of crime (primary prevention), those at risk of offending or victimisation (secondary), and those already convicted or attacked (tertiary). At its widest, prevention embraces preventive functions of policing, and sentences and dispos- als available to the courts such as imprisonment, probation and community service. At the opposite extreme, it links to informal social control and protective behaviour. It also connects with conflict reso- lution and broader social and economic policy and practice. Prevention can also act in anticipation, identifying potential causes of crime and assessing risk, in such fields as planning, design and management of products, systems and environments. It can involve appraising the likely impact on crime of social and economic policies directed towards other ends. Community safety is an aspect of the quality of life, providing an environment in which people can pursue their social and economic lives free from crime and related misbehaviour, and from the suffer- ing, costs, restrictions and fear it engenders. Community safety is facil- itated by crime prevention of all kinds, whether situational or offender orientated; by action specifically against fear; and by wider action which incidentally serves these purposes. Paul Ekblom 1996 8 Demos This page is covered by the Demos open access licence. Some rights reserved. Full details of licence conditions are available at www.demos.co.uk/openaccess crime body 1/5/03 10:37 am Page 9 Summary Recorded crime has risen tenfold since the 1950s. Between 1981 and 1993, it rose by a massive 111 per cent. At a local level, crime is often the number one issue that the public want tackled. Traditionally we have expected the criminal justice system to deal with crime. Yet Home Office figures show that for every 100 crimes committed, only three result in a caution or conviction. The problem is that the criminal justice system processes crime after the event. It cannot manage the current volume of everyday crime and disorder problems encountered by the public in their town centres, neighbour- hoods, schools and on public transport. Over the past ten years, government departments have begun to support crime prevention programmes. Local crime prevention and community safety partnerships have been developed in many areas, and they have achieved important successes. But the scale of activity to prevent crime remains very small compared to the size of the problem. Less than half of 1 per cent of the criminal justice budget is spent on prevention. This book advocates a much more serious strategy of prevention, one which creates a culture of prevention within both national and local governance. We need a strategy which will set objectives, coordinate the work of government departments, establish a structure for deliv- ering local community safety services and ensure that preventing crime becomes a greater priority for the criminal justice agencies – as the Audit Commission recommended in its recent reports on policing and the juvenile justice system. Demos 9 This page is covered by the Demos open access licence. Some rights reserved. Full details of licence conditions are available at www.demos.co.uk/openaccess crime body 1/5/03 10:37 am Page 10 Turning the tide: crime, community and prevention A national crime prevention strategy must build on the themes of early childhood prevention, opportunities for young people and safer neighbourhoods. Such a strategy should aim to reduce the risk factors which lead to criminality, such as family conflict, alienation and lack of training or employment opportunities while strengthening ‘protec- tive’ factors which divert would-be offenders from crime. These include improving parenting, school enrichment, outreach youth work and mentoring, and training and employment programmes. Such measures can strengthen young people’s attachment to their family, school and community, which in turn makes them less inclined to behave anti-socially and offend. At the same time, opportunities to commit crime must also be reduced through improving security and design of housing, intensifying the management of social housing, developing problem solving styles of policing.and increasing commu- nity involvement.