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SOCS108 CONTROLLING CRIME: AN INTRODUCTION
ESSAY ONE
Q.2) Provide a critical comparison of situational and social approaches to crime
prevention.
In his short story The Minority Report, revolutionary science-fiction writer Philip K. Dick
envisioned a future where the police have the ability to predict with near unerring certainty
the commission of a crime, and thus stop it from occurring (Dick, 1956). As a result, the
number of criminal offences committed has been reduced by 99.8%. The Minority Report
represents the penultimate system of crime prevention, an ideal that unfortunately does not
translate so easily to real life. Predicting the occurrence of a crime with any sort of reliable
accuracy is incredibly difficult, and implementing any system to stop it before it happens is
inevitably wrought with complications. This essay provides a critical comparison of two
approaches to crime prevention: the situational approach, and the social approach. It begins
by defining crime prevention, before providing a detailed analysis of the two approaches. The
strengths and limitations of each are examined in itself, and in comparison to the other.
Finally, some observations of crime prevention as a whole are made before this essay
concludes.
What is Crime Prevention?
Crime prevention has been a historical constant, both within the private sphere at an
individual level, and within the public sphere within government policies and
implementations (Gillings, 1997). Contemporary preventive measures are usually
implemented outside the criminal justice system, as the whole point of crime prevention is to
keep people out of it. The criminal justice system comprises the key institutions traditionally
associated with dealing with crime, such as the police, the courts and the prisons system.
That being said, most crime prevention strategies still originate from these institutions, most
notably from the police.
According to Freeman (1992 cited in Gillings, 1997, p. 2), crime prevention can be broken
down into two stages: the prediction of an offence about to happen, followed by an
intervention to prevent it from happening. The first part, the prediction of an offense,
explains determines why contemporary attempts at crime prevention fall short of the near

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hundred percent success rate boasted in The Minority Report. In reality prediction depends
upon a “theory of causality” (Gilings, 1997, p. 2); in other words, to predict a crime we need
to know what causes it. This is difficult within any study of human behaviour, which is not
only subjective in nature but also very difficult to quantify. The various criminological
theories that have developed focus on a myriad of different aspects of crime and its causes.
Unfortunately none of the different forms of crime prevention that consequentially develop
are effective enough to prove any theory definitive (Gillings, 1997, p. 3). As a result,
criminology “deals largely with probabilities and correlates rather than certainties and causes”
(Graham, 1990 cited in Gillings, 1997, p. 2).
The second stage of crime prevention, intervention, is not without its problems. As Gillings
(1997, p. 3) puts it most succinctly:
“Different theories imply different modes of intervention, relying on different agents…
and different techniques, applied at different stages in the genesis of crime, and at
different sites.”
There are several typologies of crime prevention, such as primary, secondary and tertiary
prevention (Brantingham and Faust, 1976 cited in Gillings, 1997, p. 4); or victim versus
offender focused prevention (Forrester, 1988 cited in Gillings, 1997, p. 4). However, it is to
situational and social approaches to crime prevention that we turn our attention to now.
Situational Crime Prevention
Situational crime prevention was developed by Ronald V. Clarke, the former Head of the
British Home Office Research and Planning Unit in the early 1980s. At the core of the
situational approach to crime prevention is an emphasis on ‘reducing the opportunities for a
specific crime to happen’ through the management of the physical environment (Gillings,
1997, p.5; Crawford and Evans, 2012, p.773). Underpinning this approach is the rational
choice criminological perspective, which is an economics based perspective that recognises
the criminal as a rational actor. Crime is committed after weighing the rewards of a specific
crime against the ‘costs’ (such as risk of being caught, maximum prison sentence etc.)
inherent to the crime (Siegel, 2009; Gül, 2009). In other words, crime depends on the
criminal’s (subjective) cost-benefit analysis: whether the ‘positives’ from committing a crime
outweigh the ‘negatives’ that (may) occur.

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As a result, situational crime prevention strategies work through private individuals making
themselves a ‘less attractive’ target for would-be criminals. While it is possible for
individuals to autonomously develop ‘crime preventing’ measures on their own, the police are
the primary source of formal, systemic dissemination of informed crime prevention strategies.
Opportunity reduction strategies work to reduce the ‘positives’ or increase the ‘negatives’
(Clarke, 1995 cited in Crawford and Evans, 2012). An example will be “reducing the
anticipated rewards of crime”: individuals are advised by the Singapore Police Force (SPF) to
“avoid wearing excessive jewellery or carrying large sums of cash when going out alone” to
prevent street robbery (Singapore Police Force and National Crime Prevention Council, n.d.).
Situational crime prevention methods are often “embedded in the design and arrangement” of
the physical environment, where they may even be overlooked (Crawford and Evans, 2012,
pg. 774). In an example of opportunity reduction, the SPF advises residents to ensure all
openings to their house “are properly secured with strong grilles and good quality closed
shackled locks” to prevent their houses being broken into (Singapore. Woodlands West
Neighbourhood Police Centre in Jurong Police Division, 2012). This strategy is easily
overlooked in daily life because it requires little to no modification in behaviour; most people
will typically lock their houses without being prompted to by the police. Prevention is merely
the using of a more secure type of lock which will deter would-be burglars due to its inherent
design. Because of its practicality and the ease of implementation, the situational approach to
crime prevention is popular with law enforcement agencies. Furthermore, situational crime
prevention may also demonstrate a “diffusion of benefits”, where neighbours of the primary
target of preventive measures are also less attractive to crime because of their close proximity
(Clarke and Weisburd, 1994 cited in Crawford and Evans, 2012, pg. 779).
There are several shortcomings of situational crime prevention, such as its underlying theory
of rational choice not being applicable to emotional or irrational crimes (e.g. hate crimes). It
also seems to imply that crime is ‘normative’ and that criminals, when faced with an
opportunity, simply ‘cannot help themselves’ from committing the offence; criminal
motivations are an assumed given. As a result, the root causes of crime are never properly
addressed; society members may end up distrustful of each other, more fearful of crime and
encourage a society with a ‘fortress mentality’, where people “live secured behind walls, gates
and other security paraphernalia” (Crawford and Evans, 2012, p. 780).

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One central critique of situational crime prevention is its displacement effect (Crawford and
Evans, 2012, pp. 779—780): crime is not so much prevented as redirected to other forms,
places or even people. Although the displacement effect of situational crime preventive
methods provides clear evidence for the effectiveness of this approach, it can be problematic
when displaced crime is more serious, or ends up more harmful. This may happen when
criminals employ more destructive techniques to overcome ‘hardened (physical) targets’,
resulting in a greater loss for the victim. Arguably more harmful is when crime shifts to more
vulnerable targets to whom the consequences of a crime may have a bigger impact, for
example when crime shifts to target the less affluent who will find it more financially
devastating if their property is stolen.
The second main critique of situational crime prevention is its potential to develop a ‘victim-
blaming’ mentality, with some types of victims viewed as “less deserving of credence and
support than others” (Williams, 2005, p. 493). While this perception may have some
foundation in reality (one is unlikely to obtain sympathy if they neglect to secure their bicycle
and it is stolen), it is especially harmful when manifests within the criminal justice system.
The most prominent and controversial type of ‘victim-blaming’ pertains to rape and violence
against women. The perception that the victim ‘deserved it’ because of her behaviour or
dressing effectively exonerates the aggressor of his responsibility to exercise self-control. It
is also ignores the power dynamics within society and the criminal justice system, where
women are typically in a weaker position in relation to men (Kennedy, 1993 cited in
Williams, 2005, p. 494). ‘Victim-blaming’ also “guarantees men freedom to intimidate
women and exploit their weaknesses” (Estrich, 1987 cited in Siegel, 2000) and may deter
victims from reporting rape. A classic example of ‘victim-blaming’ can be witnessed in the
1989 acquittal of Steven Lord on the grounds that the attire of his rape victim was provocative
(The Milwaukee Journal, 1989).
Social Crime Prevention
Where situational crime prevention focused on predicting ‘what opportunities will lead to a
crime occurring?’, social crime prevention could perhaps be best described as focused on
predicting ‘what (social) factors will lead to a person committing a crime upon seeing those
opportunities?’. As such, they are not actually mutually exclusive perspectives. Instead, they
are complementary, and can even be viewed as the latter happening within former, because

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the subjective social experience of an individual (which social crime prevention seeks to
‘correct’) happens within the objective physical world (which situational crime prevention
seeks to manipulate).
Situational crime prevention’s rational choice perspective does not fully explain why some
people, when facing the same ‘criminal opportunities’ and temptations, make an equally
rational decision to not commit a crime. Social crime prevention attempts to explain this
decision by taking the sociological perspective that crime is a result of “defective social
regulation” (Rock, 2012, p. 45). The motivations of individuals (which are shaped by their
socio-cultural upbringing), as well as their social relations and social environment influence
their behaviour and tendency towards crime (Crawford and Evans, 2012, p. 781). One of the
many examples sociological theories that embody this perspective is Hirschi’s social control
theory, which claims that “delinquent acts result when the individual’s bond to society is
weak or broken” (Hirschi, 1969, cited in Rock, 2012, p. 50). Social crime prevention
methods may thus attempt to strengthen these social bonds so as to “provide people with a
stake in their own conformity” (Crawford, 1998 cited in Crawford and Evans, 2012, p. 785),
and typically require implementation by an agency outside the criminal justice system. These
methods are typically categorised into two forms:
(1) Developmental crime prevention (Tremblay and Craig, 1995 cited in Crawford and
Evans, 2012, p.781; Turner, 2015b): focuses on ‘stopping individuals from growing
up to become criminals’ based on the idea that ‘criminal behaviour’ learnt at an early
stage in life may lead to a life time of crime. Programmes may target children and
young people and their parents identified as ‘at risk’ of offending (Crawford and
Evans, 2012, p. 782).
(2) Community crime prevention (Hope, 1995 cited in Crawford and Evans, 2012, p.781;
Turner, 2015b): focuses on geographical locations and communities. Prevention
usually comes in the form of programmes and state policies aimed at changing the
“social conditions, institutions, and relations that influence offending among…
communities” by improving the community’s crime preventive capacities and
informal social controls (Crawford and Evans, 2012, p. 784).

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Where situational crime prevention strategies can be clearly and directly linked to the crime,
social crime prevention faces a more tenacious link, and thus lead to implementation and
ethical problems. One implementation problem is that social crime prevention strategies are
difficult to design; community crime prevention strategies may lack of a “clear sense of
purpose or a theory of how change is achieved beyond improving the locality and the well-
being of residents” (Crawford and Evans, 2012, p. 785). This may lead to schemes involving
the police being redundant, an idea further reinforced by Rosenbaum’s (1988, cited in
Crawford and Evans, 2012, p. 787) observation that communities with lower need—usually
the more affluent neighbourhoods—seem to have more crime prevention activity. Hope
(1995, cited in Crawford and Evans, 2012, p. 785) goes as far as to call community crime
prevention ‘complex pieces of socio-political action that also have a defining ideological and
ethical character’. A more radical view may even interpret community crime prevention as a
‘public relations’ exercise by the state (through the police) to the voting upper and middle
classes that they are ‘doing something about crime’, and an imposing of “absolutist standards
of normality” (Young, 2011, cited in Turner, 2015a) upon the less powerful.
Even if clear and effective social crime prevention strategies are developed, they are
unfortunately limited by “the very human process of implementation” (Gillings, 1997, p. 3).
This is illustrated most clearly in the case of multi-agency crime prevention implementation.
In Britain for example, it was recognised that the police needed to “(collaborate) with other
agencies, ‘social, economic, cultural and educational’” (Newman, 1983, cited in Gillings,
1997, p. 85—86) as “some of the factors affecting crime lie outside the control or direct
influence of the police” (Home Office, 1984, cited in Gillings, 1997, p. 87). However, it was
“frequently difficult to persuade the people or organisations concerned to take the necessary
action” (Home Office 1983, cited in Gillings, 1997, p. 86—87). This reluctance to take action
could have been in part due to the difficulty in illustrating to agencies who do not frequently
deal with crime how a measure may lead to crime prevention. It could also undoubtedly be
due in part to the external agencies having an indifferent attitude towards crime prevention, as
their core priorities did not leave much space for accommodating these measures (Gillings,
1997, p. 98).
One of the ethical considerations with the social crime prevention approach is its potential to
develop a mentality of ‘community-blaming’, a larger scale form of ‘victim-blaming’. Poorer

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communities that are ill equipped to prevent crime may be blamed for their failure, drawing
attention away from fact that it is in fact the state’s responsibility to provide adequate socio-
economic support (Crawford and Evans, 2012, p. 782). This shift in responsibility makes
already impoverished communities susceptible to further marginalisation and social
exclusion, perpetuating a vicious cycle.
Finally, the inherent inaccuracy of social crime prediction will inevitably result in the
targeting of those who will never have grown up to be criminals. Such labelling (Bernburg
and Krohn, 2003 cited in Crawford and Evans, 2012, p. 782) is ethically problematic as it may
also lead to stigmatisation, and in extreme circumstances even end up as self-fulfilling
prophecies. In developmental crime prevention, for example, it may be difficult to justify the
claim that anti-social behaviour in adolescence will lead to adult and career criminality.
Although there are correlations between the two, it does not necessarily imply causation,
especially when research indicates that most youth ‘grow out of crime’ (Flood-Page et al.,
2003 cited in Kirton, 2005, p. 394). Programmes targeted at social groups who possess risk
factors will inevitably result in incorrect identifications of ‘potential criminals’, and may be
psychologically traumatic for a still developing child or teenager. Nonetheless, there is space
to manoeuvre despite social crime prevention’s short comings. For example, universal
prevention programmes may be used, rather than targeted ones (Crawford and Evans, 2012, p.
783). Utting (2004, cited in Crawford and Evans, 2012, p. 783) advises that preventive
measures should “(justify) themselves in terms of children’s existing needs and problems,
rather than future risks of criminality”.
Final Observations
Most of the situational and social crime prevention methods discussed, not just in this essay
but within the wider criminological literature, tend to revolve around crimes that occur in
public places. As a result, ‘private’ crimes like white-collar crime and familial crimes (such
as domestic violence) may not be sufficiently protected against. Although the former tends to
be relegated to more specialist discussion, the implication of gender within crime prevention
is still relatively under-developed (Shaw, 2009 cited in Crawford and Evans, 2012, p. 800).
This is reflective of the general focus of wider criminological research, and the subjectivity
that underscore all human behaviour. It is thus important that criminologists are reflexive
when considering the area of focus of crime prevention methods. Fortunately, situational and

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social crime prevention approaches hint at solutions to both types of crime, however that
discussion falls outside the scope of this essay.
Conclusion
Situational and social approaches to crime prevention are potentially complementary solutions
to the problem of crime. Both have their own set of advantages and limitations, as well as
ethical considerations surrounding their methods employed. As criminologists and criminal
justice agencies work continuously towards a utopian society where crime has been
systematically eradicated (although some may argue that such a state is not only impossible
but a sign of dystopia), we are bear in mind that crime prevention, like crime, is a social
construct that is subjective and pliable: susceptible to manipulation, misinterpretation or
misrepresentation. As Steven Spielberg’s film adaptation of Dick’s Minority Report (2002)—
which explores the consequences of the manipulation of a ‘perfect’ crime prevention
system—summarily puts it: “If there’s a flaw, it’s human”.
Total word count: 2,830
Less sub-headings and citations (338 words): 2,492

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