police&crime essay 500words
Sharonhy
Lecture2slide.pdf
LECTURE 2
Part 1) Responding to Crime Places & Part 2) Responding to Offenders
CRM201Policing and Crime Prevention
KAPLAN Singapore (September 2020)
Reading: Part (1)
(Required) Chapter 5 from your text book – ”The geometry of crime and crime pattern theory”
(Required) Chapter 12 from your text book – “Crime prevention through environmental design”
Reading: Part (2)
(Required) Chapter 6 from your text book – ”Crime scripts”
(Required) Chapter 7 from your text book – “Offender mobility”
Lecture (2)
• Essay/report writing, https://rl.talis.com/3/murdoch/lists/AA2E629B-E183-FD0D-21AF- 0F68EEF2452C.html?lang=en-US (“The Study Skills Handbook”, Stella Cottrell in additional readings for this unit) entire book is useful – Chapter (11) ‘Writing at University level’ pp.273-307’ (a good start)
• Geometry of Crime (Ch.5) “…argument for complete randomness of targets and victims is no longer plausible”(Brantingham et al..2017, p.98)
• Place/Hot Spots
• A current example of a place-specific response in Australia
• Crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED)
• The role of CCTV in managing places
• Looking more closely at the issue of displacement
2
Geometry of Crime ‘Place’ “The geometry of crime relates the places in which we spend our time, and the pathways between them, to criminal offending and victimization: crime pattern theory is a meta-theory that integrates the three main theoretical perspectives within environmental criminology” (Brantingham et al, 2017, p.99)
1. Routine activity theory
2. Rational choice theory
3. Geometry of crime
“The structure of cities to understand crime patterns – “the structure of neighbourhoods and road networks shapes the directionality of the journey to crime and creates both accessibility channels between offenders and targets, and both social and physical barriers that limit the places where crime concentrates” (Brantingham et al, 2017, p.103)
4
What are place problems?
• Repeat location problems
o Involve different offenders and different targets
o Interaction in the same place (time and/or space)
• These occur when
o New potential offenders and
o New potential targets
o Coincide in time/space
o In the absence of effective place management
5
Hot spots
• A geographic concept
o Place (address) with a disproportionately high rate of crime
• Remember the drivers
o Crime generators
o Crime attractors
o Crime enablers
• Places can be crime neutral
• Hot spots emerge when (picture overlap of three circles)
o The number of motivated offenders increases
o The number of suitable targets increases
o The level of control from capable guardians decreases
6
What makes a hot spot hot?
• Busy or dangerous locations
• What makes spots hot will help determine the success of reducing crime
• Mapping is important for identifying these patterns
7
Three basic forms of chronic hot spots
• Mapping helps distinguish acute hot spots from chronic ones
o Chronic hot spots are unlikely to decline naturally
• Three basic forms of chronic hot spot
1. Hot dots
o Specific locations with high crime levels
2. Hot lines
o Street segments where crime is concentrated
3. Hot areas
o Suburban areas where crime is concentrated
8
• Text
o Point
9
Hot dots
• Text
o Point
10
Hot lines
• Text
o Point
11
Hot areas
Hot spots can be multi-faceted and multi-tiered
• The next map shows the close proximity of
o Homicides
o Gang territories
o Open air drug markets
o Legal liquor establishments (bars) all in close proximity
• It also illustrates the close proximity of the two police stations…
“Rule 7. Crime generators are created by high flows of people through and to nodal activity points. Crime attractors are created when targets are located at nodal activity points of individuals who have a greater willingness to commit crime” (Brantingham et al, 2017, p.106) ‘the textbook’
12
• Text
o Point
13
Homicides
14
Gang territory
15
Open air drug markets
• Text
o Point
16
Legal liquor stores
• Text
o Point
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Police stations
What Can we do? - responding to hot spots
18
Source: Clarke R.V. and Eck, J.E. (2005). Crime Analysis for Problem-Solvers in 60 Small Steps
Responding to hot spots
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Source: Clarke R.V. and Eck, J.E. (2005). Crime Analysis for Problem-Solvers in 60 Small Steps
Responding to hot spots
20
Source: Clarke R.V. and Eck, J.E. (2005). Crime Analysis for Problem-Solvers in 60 Small Steps
Lock outs…
• Changes introduced to the Liquor Amendment Act (2014)
o 1.30am lockout at hotels, registered clubs, nightclubs in Sydney CBD Entertainment Precinct and Kings Cross Precinct
o 3.00am cessation of alcohol service in venues in these areas
o Freeze on new liquor licences across these two areas
o Ban on takeaway alcohol sales after 10pm across NSW
o Extension of bans on designated ‘trouble-makers’
• Results
o Immediate and substantial reduction in assaults – down 32% in Kings Cross and 40% in Sydney CBD
o No consistent increase in assaults in adjacent precincts
o Keep this in mind when we discuss displacement
21
Lock outs… At what cost… what do you think..?
22
Source: http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/m/z/k/m/b/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gmzggk.png/1456078976307.jpg
Crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED)
“…the extent to which the individual design features of the built environment (house,
school, shopping mall or hospital) as well as the natural environment surrounding those
buildings, impact upon crime risk, and subsequently how these features can be altered to
reduce that level of risk”. (Armitage, 2017, p.259) – the text (police, govt involvement in
building authorisations), UK & Netherlands
• As we’ve talked about so far
o Crime is specific and situational
o Crime distribution is influenced by land use and transportation
o Offenders are opportunistic and commit crime in places they are aware of
o Opportunities for crime emerge as a consequence of daily routine
activities
o Places with crime are also places without effective place controllers
(managers, guardians, handlers…)
• CPTED asks – “Why here?”
23
The CPTED process
• CPTED evaluates
o The crime environment
o Features of the environment that facilitate crime or undesirable behaviour
• CPTED attempts to remove/reduce opportunities by changing various aspects of
o Environmental design
o Use of the environment
• CTPED is a crime prevention program
o Focuses on design and productive use
o Target hardening and security measures are not the primary means for improvement
o Many of the tools for CPTED fall outside the purview of policing
24
CPTED considers
• Building design
• Site layout and site amenities
o Lighting and landscaping
• Facility location and the influence of surrounding land use
• Target hardening and security measures
• Routine use and activity schedules for facilities
• Rules and policies governing facility use and behaviour
25
CPTED objective 1: Control access
• Control access by creating both real and perceptual barriers
to entry and movement
o Who belongs in the place?
o When do they belong there?
o Where are they allowed to be when they are there?
o What should they be doing?
o How long should they stay?
o Informal social control and guardianship can play a role here
26
CPTED objective 1: Control access
• Examples
o Fences, tree lines, or hedges define boundaries
o Drives, footpaths, and gardens guide movement through a site
o Gates and doors limit entry to a site
o Signs direct movement, provide information, set behavioural
expectations, and restrict access
o Consistent colour/materials – buildings, pavers, lighting – create
an identity
o These features can be augmented with the use of locks, alarms,
formal surveillance
27
• Take advantage of design to provide opportunities to see
and be seen
o Includes opportunities to see adjacent properties or the site
perimeter
o Possibly develop opportunities to see parking areas, walkways,
and other areas from inside the building
o These design elements need support by
▪ Potential observers who look for and report unusual behaviour
▪ Policies and procedures
28
CPTED objective 2: Use design to increase visibility
• Examples
o Lighting improves ability to observe activity and identify people
o Windows afford views
o Building location can create or remove views
o Trees, shrubs can be selected and maintained to minimise the conflict between lighting and landscaping to maximise views
o Furniture arrangements, window treatments, and interior design can support observation and encourage guardianship
o Can be supported by CCTV or guards
29
CPTED objective 2: Use design to increase visibility
• Use design to define ownership and encourage maintenance of territories
o Who belongs and what are they allowed to do?
o Administrative support (rules and regulations) can be crucial to the
success of the design applications
• Examples (also see chap.12, pp.263-267, 269-271 & 278-279)
o Changes in elevation, or variations in paving or flooring materials, define
transitions from public to private spaces
o Fences, hedges, tree lines or planter boxes separate spaces
o Gardens, artwork and furniture individualize spaces and show that
someone cares and is paying attention
o Signs establish ownership and any limits on use
30
CPTED objective 3: Use design to define ownership
How does CPTED relate to POP?
• Both consider a broad array of problems, not just crime
• Both require systematic analyses of events, conditions and factors that contribute to crime and disorder
• Both generate strategies that are tailored to a problem or location
• Both engage citizens, government agencies and other stakeholders in addition to the police
• CPTED is one aspect of POP
• CPTED focuses on environmental responses and modifications, while POP is a much broader process that involves environmental responses as one of many strategies
31
32
CPTED in action: a local example
• Residential street with a thoroughfare repeatedly targeted
with litter, drug paraphernalia, and anti-social behavior
• Analysis revealed
o Broken street light
o Park bench in place
o Overgrown bushes restricting visibility
o No rubbish bin
• Intervention designed to reduce opportunity through
environmental change
o Bench removed, light fixed, bushes cut-back, rubbish bin installed
CCTV
• Tilley (1993) proposed a range of mechanisms by which CCTV may impact on crime, including
o Apprehending offenders at a later date
o Timely use of formal surveillance resources
o Increase in perceived risk of offending (when offenders know the cameras are there)
• CCTV impact is maximised by implementation of complimentary measures
o Improved lighting
o Presence of visible formal security
o Broadcasting CCTV – implementation and successes
33 Source: Tilley, N. (1993). Understanding car parks, crime and CCTV: evaluation lessons from safer cities - Crime Prevention Unit Series Paper No.42. London: Police Research
Group, Crime Prevention Unit, Home Office Police Department.
Additional benefits of CCTV
• Ratcliffe (2006) outlined some additional benefits of CCTV,
beyond crime reduction
o Reduced fear of crime
o Facilitation of police investigations
o Timely provision of medical assistance
o Place management
o Information gathering
o Diffusion of benefits to non-covered areas
34 Source: Ratcliffe, J. (2006). Video surveillance of public places (Problem-Oriented Guides for Police Response Guides Series No. 4). Washington: Community Oriented Policing
Services (COPS), U.S. Department of Justice
Farrington’s quasi-experimental design to test CCTV
• UK-based meta-analytical design
o Locations: data from 14 sites
o Timing: pre- and post-CCTV implementation
o Data types: victimisation survey and police recorded crime
o Sites: target sites, controls, and buffer zones
• Findings
o CCTV effective in reducing crimes in train station car parks but
not in city centres or residential areas
o Effective in reducing vehicle crime, but not other types of crime
o Most effective when CCTV coverage was ‘high’ and when
combined with other interventions, e.g., improved lighting
o No evidence of displacement or diffusion of benefits
35 Source: Farrington, D. P., Gill, M., Waples, S. J., & Argomaniz, J. (2007). The effects of closed-circuit television on crime: meta-analysis of an English national quasi-experimental
multi-site evaluation. Journal of Experimental Criminology, 3, 21-38
If we prevent crime in one place, does it just displace?
• There are 5 main ways in which this displacement criticism suggests crime is moved around
1. Crime could be moved from one location to another (geographical displacement)
2. Crime could be moved from one time to another (temporal displacement)
3. Crime could be directed away from one target to another (target displacement)
4. One method of committing crime could be substituted for another (tactical displacement)
5. One kind of crime could be substituted for another (crime type displacement)
36
What do we know about displacement?
• If we accept crime is based on opportunity, then we should not expect displacement as a rule
o Identifying opportunities will be influenced by experience
o Experience will be context-specific
• This will be influenced by a number of factors
o How motivated is the offender?
o How much extra effort is required to find and exploit an alternative?
o How much knowledge do offenders have of other opportunities?
• Bennett and Wright (1984) found that when offenders were prevented from committing a burglary
o Only 43% indicated they would seek alternative opportunities
o Some perceived it as ‘bad luck’ and didn’t offend that day
37
• Routine activity theory and crime pattern theory also suggests crime won’t automatically displace
o Mental maps – cognitive awareness space
o Aware of places around nodes, paths, and edges
• Wesiburd and Telp (2012) suggest crime should not displace at all
o They argue crime is coupled to places
o Some places experience almost no crime, and others experience a disproportionate amount
o This is a product of the places themselves
o Preventing crime at one location shouldn’t mean crime moves, unless it moves to another place with the same characteristics
38
What do we know about displacement?
What about when the benefits extend beyond the intervention?
• Researchers looking for displacement have sometimes found the opposite
o Diffusion of benefits
• Rather than finding that crime has been pushed to some other place or time, they have found that crime has been reduced more widely than expected
• Two potential mechanisms for this
o Discouragement – changing targets involves extra effort or reduced reward
o Deterrence – offender is uncertain about the increased risk of offending – overestimates the reach of an intervention
39
Displacement or diffusion of benefits: apartment burglary
40
Source: 60 small steps, step 13
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Source: 60 small steps, step 13
Displacement or diffusion of benefits: apartment burglary
42
Source: 60 small steps, step 13
Displacement or diffusion of benefits: apartment burglary
43
Source: 60 small steps, step 13
Displacement or diffusion of benefits: apartment burglary
44
Source: 60 small steps, step 13
Displacement or diffusion of benefits: apartment burglary
Responding to Offenders
Part 2, Lecture 2
KAPLAN SINGAPORE
September 2020
Overview for part 2
Who commits crime (remember repeat offending)?
Why do we get repeat offenders?
o Risk factors
o Expertise
o Opportunity
Finding repeat offenders
What can we do about repeat offenders?
o Early in life
o Problem-focused approaches – developmental prevention
o Situation-focused approaches – opportunity reduction
46
47
Motivated offenders
• Considered from the offender’s point of view
o Do they think the target is suitable and the guardian is absent?
o Motivated by
▪ Gain/need – e.g., poverty or a drug habit
▪ Society/experience/environment – e.g., peer pressure, lack of education
▪ Beliefs – e.g., that some crimes aren’t wrong
• Offenders can sometimes be controlled by Handlers
o Someone who knows the offender well and is in a position to exert some control over their actions
o Informal: Parents, siblings, teachers, friends, and spouses
o Formal: probation and parole officers
48
What do we know about offenders?
• Men commit crime at a much higher rate than women
o Low-level criminal behaviour is quite normal among males in early adolescence
o A relatively small number of people commit a very large number of crimes and some have extended criminal careers
• UK 2003 Crime and Justice Survey randomly sampled 12,000 people aged 10-65
o 40% reported committing at least one of a selection of 20 core offences
o 13% males vs. 7% females offended in the past year
o Peak age of offending – 14-17 for both sexes
o Involvement in crime dropped dramatically as age increased
o 2% of the sample accounted for 82% of all the offences
49
There’s a logic to offender movement
• Remember crime pattern theory
• We know offenders don’t like to travel far if they can avoid it (Chap.7 of your text – from page 146)
50Source: Townsley Chapter 7, “Offender mobility”, from Environmental Criminology and Crime Analysis (2017)
Find somewhere close: • Accessible • Known to the offender, • Where their presence is
unremarkable
• Typically in a direction they were already going in (remember the nodes, paths, and edges)
Repeat offending ‘the 80:20’
• Remember the 80:20 rule
• Philadelphia cohort study (Wolfgang) found
o 5% of offenders committed 40% of crimes
• In England and Wales 1% of the population made up 9% of offenders, and they committed 62% of offences
o 11% of male offenders committed 66% of all offences by males
o 6% of female offenders committed 53% of all offences by females
51
Why do we get repeat offending?
• Why?
o Impulsive individuals with weak social attachments to others tend to get into trouble more
o People exposed to crime and disorder opportunities take advantage of them and adjust accordingly
• Both of these theories can be true!
o Impulsive individuals with weak attachments require routine exposures to crime opportunities to become repeat offenders
• Components of a holistic explanation
o Childhood developmental risk factors
o Trajectories and turning points
o Expertise as an alternative/additional explanation
o The role of opportunity 52
Risk factors for criminality
• Farrington (1996, 2007) reviewed a wide range of literature and identified risk factors for criminality
o Poor concentration, impulsivity and daring
o Low intelligence and attainment
o Poor parental supervision, erratic and harsh discipline, and child abuse
o Broken homes without affectionate mothers
o Parental conflict
o Criminal, antisocial, and alcoholic parents
o Socio-economic deprivation, notably large families, low family income, and poor housing
o Opportunity
53
Rethinking risk – trajectories and turning points
• No universal acceptance that risk factors encountered early in life determine the future
• In the mid-1990’s, Laub & Sampson (2003) followed up on a group of 1,000 males first examined between 1923 and 1932 (aged 10-17)
• Concluded
o ‘Turning points’
o Linked to ‘the interactions of human agency, life course events, situations, and historical context’ are crucial to the crime trajectories individuals follow
• No evidence for ‘life-course persistent’ offenders
54
Rethinking risk – trajectories and turning points
• Stress the significance of ‘intentionality’
o The men in the sample had made choices about how to act
o They were not passive objects of their early childhood experiences or biological attributes
o Contingencies played a much larger part in producing diverse crime careers
o Becoming employed, getting married, joining the army
“Overall it appears that successful cessation from crime occurs when the proximate causes of crime are affected. A central element in the desistance process is the ‘knifing off’ of individual offenders from their immediate environment and offering them a new script for the future”
(Laub and Sampson, 2003, p.157)
55
Life as a series of phases and transitions
• Focuses on mechanisms to influence crime-related situational choices (often dynamic in nature)
o Contrasts the risk-factors approach, which focuses on associations between offending and distal variables (often static in nature)
• Phases are not ‘stages’
o They do not represent the unfolding of a predetermined developmental blueprint
o They are socially constructed and highly variable
o They depend as much on individual choices and happenstance as they do on normative or biological timetables
o With each transitional phase is the chance of more than one outcome
56
“People are not like rockets whose trajectory is established at the moment they are launched.
Indeed, it is the lifelong capacity for change and reorganisation that renders human beings capable of dramatic recovery from early harm and incapable of being inoculated against later adversity.
This lifelong plasticity renders us both adaptive and vulnerable.”
(Shonkoff and Phillips, 2000, p.90)
“…Individuals are not necessarily inherently criminal – the person-situation interaction can be powerful enough to compel even law-abiding citizens to engage in criminal behavior… (Townsley, p.144 of your text) the Milgram, Zimbardo experiments ‘the Lucifer effect), peer group pressure..perceived necessity….others….?
https://www.ted.com/talks/philip_zimbardo_on_the_psychology_of_evil?lang uage=en (Zimbardo ‘Ted’ talk for those interested)
57
Life as a series of phases and transitions
Nothing succeeds like success
• Successful offending can lead to more offending
• Offenders, like others, learn from doing
• Offenders learn from each other
o Information can spread through individuals working in small groups, group breakup, and new group formation
• Successful offending can erode prevention, thus making subsequent offending easier
o E.g., a small break in a fence can become larger with use
o Problems moving from being acute to chronic
o Crime generators become crime attractors
58
Expertise as another factor influencing offending
• Expertise as an explanation for persistent offending
o Building on the principles of cognitive psychology
o Domain specificity, practice effects, skill acquisition
o Structural representations of knowledge and skills in memory
o Observable, behavioural manifestations improving on a continuum, from novice to master
o The end of the continuum achieved through continual, deliberate, challenging practice
• Consistent with Ericsson’s (2006) definition of expertise
o Acquisition of cognitive processes and consequent behaviour
o Demonstrably superior to those new to a given domain
o Faster, more cognitively economical, are triggered automatically in relevant environments
o Based on considerable experience and honing of skill over time” 59
Opportunity is still key to offending
• Farmer et al. (2016) examined the role situational motivation and opportunity played in desisting from sexual offending
• Contrary to the traditional ‘pathology’ perspective to explain this crime
• Interviews with 32 convicted offenders
o Typically explain their offending via scripts consistent with routine activity theory
o Emphasise the role of circumstantial changes in both onset and desistance from sexual offending
• Wortely and colleagues have explored this issue further
60
How do we find repeat offenders?
• Repeat offending can be difficult to detect in practice because offenders try to remain anonymous
• The data from police about offenders will be incomplete (assuming it exists at all)
o Hard to assess the 80:20 calculation unlike locations/victims
• Intelligence information can provide evidence of repeat offending
o Quality is highly variable
o Seldom comprehensive
• Systematic interviews with offenders and their associates can reveal very useful information for understanding problems
61
Using repeat victimisation as a window into repeat offending
• Pease has argued the benefits for detection resulting from focusing on repeat victimisation
• Evidence suggests repeat victimisation is the work of the most committed offenders
• Offender targeting may be achieved by detecting repeated offences (same household/person)
o These are likely committed by offenders police would want to target
• This approach avoids allegations of violations of civil liberties
o Focuses on the most troublesome subset of acts that prolific offenders commit
62
Another avenue… Offender self- selection
• Offenders self-select
o Present themselves for police action
o Actions disproportionately undertaken by prolific offenders provide means of inducing offender self-selection
• Must separate ‘actions’ from ‘conditions’
o Targeting individuals with lots of tattoos because of a known prevalence of tattoos amongst prolific offenders would be harassment (**maybe now not so true as in the past with the immense popularity of tattoos)
• The actions must also justify official attention to be effective gateways to enforcement
• Chenery et al. (1999) looked at illegal parking in disabled bays as a means of targeting offenders
63
Source: Chenery, Henshaw, & Pease (1999). Illegal parking in disabled bays: a means to offender targeting. Policing and Reducing Crime Briefing Note 1/99
Who parks in disabled bays?
• Traffic wardens in Huddersfield between July and December 1988
• Whenever they found a car illegally parked in a disabled bay they recorded
o Status of car licence, condition of tyres, registration
• A sample of ‘control’ (legally parked cars) was also collected
• Details of the vehicle and owner were sought from police databases
64
• Source: Chenery, Henshaw, & Pease (1999). Illegal parking in disabled bays: a means to offender targeting. Policing and Reducing Crime Briefing Note 1/99
Who parks in disabled bays?
65
• Source: Chenery, Henshaw, & Pease (1999). Illegal parking in disabled bays: a means to offender targeting. Policing and Reducing Crime Briefing Note 1/99
Reducing the likelihood of becoming a motivated offender
• The Perry Preschool Program – implemented 1962-67
• Participants
o 123 disadvantaged 3-4 year olds
o Selected based on membership of a group considered to be at- risk
• Intervention
o Goal: enhance intellectual development and school achievement
o Daily pre-school program + weekly home visits by teachers
o Aim: encourage effective decision making, self-discipline, working effectively with others, self-expression, reasoning, and accepting differences
o Followed-up annually from 3-11, then at 14, 15, 19, 27, and 40
66
Reducing the likelihood of becoming a motivated offender
• Outcomes
o Preschool intellectual gains not maintained
o Higher school achievement
o Higher rates of literacy
o Higher rates of employment
o Less offending (particularly less arrests)
o Less anti-social behaviour
o Less welfare dependency
• Cost-benefit
o Net savings to US government estimated at $96,000
o Due to reduction in criminal justice costs, health consumption, requirement in welfare, and increase in taxes from employment
67
Limitations of this approach to prevention
• Literature shows it is possible to make a difference
o Short and long term benefits are possible
o Especially for disadvantaged and vulnerable children and young people
• Mixed success is the current state of the field
o Although some interventions have been demonstrated to work
o Not all work
o Some interventions backfire (increase crime involvement)
o Some interventions work, but the effect isn’t consistent (e.g., home-visiting programs)
68
• Community-based interventions frequently encounter major problems in engaging successfully with families and children
o Particularly in disadvantaged areas
• Programs have struggled to move beyond solely focusing on the child
o To include family, school, and community systems
• Programs have typically struggled to secure long-term funding and sustainability
• Very difficult and costly to evaluate – hard to attribute causality to interventions
• Beyond the scope of police and justice agencies now – static risk factors
69
Limitations of this approach to prevention
Broadening the ‘developmental’ response
• Childhood risk factors have a very modest predictive power into adulthood
o Human agency, situational factors, and chance are more important
o Enormous variability of life histories
• Prevention efforts should
o Continue across the life course
o Be skeptical about relying too much on risk factor analyses/offender typologies, and
o Give weight to routine activities theory and situational prevention as well as developmental research
70
Prevention based on trajectories and turning points
• Life is a series of transitions
o Divorce, death of a parent, moving house, starting new school, leaving home, experience of abuse, leaving prison…
• Use points of transition to influence change (Homel 2005)
o Each transition offers the possibility to continue in the same direction or turn
o Turns can be towards crime involvement or away from it
o Transition points offer promising points of intervention
71
A broad view of developmental crime prevention
• This approach involves interventions early in developmental pathways
o Target issues that might lead to problems (or the escalation of problems)
o Not only interventions in early childhood
• The nature and timing of intervention depends on
o The individual’s age
o The identified pathways to offending
o The critical transition points that characterise those pathways
• Under this framework, the first offence – the first contact with the criminal justice system – is one of the critical transition points in a person’s life
72
Developmental prevention and responding to repeat offenders?
• Transitions and turning points to reduce likelihood of
reoffending
o Incapacitation of repeat offenders
o Managing repeat offenders
o Treatment to reduce risk
o Post release support
73
Targeted incapacitation can be effective
• In the Netherlands enhanced prison sentences of 2 years were made available for habitual offenders for whom other preventive efforts had failed
• Minimum 10+ convictions with an average of 31, almost all of whom were unemployed drug-dependent older individuals
• This was associated with substantial falls in volume crime, a reduction of around 100 thefts per annum for the incapacitation of one additional prolific offender
74
But at what cost? An Australian example – what cost for Singapore.?
75Source: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/weatherburn-comes-out-swinging-20160216-gmvavn.html
Most recent
estimates $120,000
per prisoner, per
year
But at what cost? the equation
76Source: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/weatherburn-comes-out-swinging-20160216-gmvavn.html
“A 10% increase in imprisonment
only delivers a 1-2% fall in crime” Dr Weatherburn, NSW BOCSAR 2016
But at what cost?
77Source: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/weatherburn-comes-out-swinging-20160216-gmvavn.html
44% of adult prisoners return to
prison within 2 years of release Report of Government Services, 2016
• Targeted at those presenting the greatest risk
o 80:20 principle again
• Typically a combination of stick and carrot approach
o Drug and behavioural interventions
o Home and prison visits
o Drug testing
o Mentoring
o Swift enforcement of breaches
78
Prolific offender programs
Treatment
• Cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT)
o Managing the thoughts and feelings that underpin unwanted behaviours
o Strategies include: systematic desensitisation, perspective taking, modelling, and coaching
o Evaluations have not found consistent effective results
• Drug treatment
o Drugs are believed to dispose individuals to behave criminally
o Drug dependency creates a need to money that can usually only be sourced through crime
o Drugs produce secondary crimes – drug trafficking and violence
o Remembering correlation doesn’t equal causation here
o Drop-out rates for programs are high
o Treatment can be effective, even when it’s coerced 79
Post-release support
• Six components of successful vocational guidance programs
(Harrison, 2004)
1.Components offered outside of the prison environment
2.Intensive follow-up periods
3.Temporary funds for reintegration and transition
4.Employer referral services and job readiness skills
5.Vocational training
6.Independent living skills
80 Source: Harrison & Schehr (2004) Offenders and post-release jobs, Journal of Offender Rehabilitation
Understanding the crime script and manipulating opportunity
• Crime scripts – finding ways to disrupt the opportunity structure
(Page 119 of you’re the Text) example p.121, p.125
example
• A framework for understanding choices made by offenders before,
during, and after committing specific types of crime
o Completely compatible with rational choice
o Crime is purposeful
o Decision-making is crime specific
o Bounded rationality
• Understanding the script maximizes the potential effectiveness of
opportunity-based interventions at every stage of the crime-
commission process
o Potential to prevent, reduce, and disrupt crime 81
Understanding the crime script and manipulating opportunity
82
• Assumes that any crime requires a set of standard actions to be performed in a particular order
o Like the script of a play
o Scenes are sequential stages of the crime
o The case consists of criminals, victims, and bystanders
o The tools (facilitators) are props
Crime scripts example
83Source: Crime analysis for problem solvers in 60 small steps – step 35
Crime scripts example
84Source: Crime analysis for problem solvers in 60 small steps – step 35
Crime scripts example
85Source: Crime analysis for problem solvers in 60 small steps – step 35
Understanding the crime script and manipulating opportunity
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• Script analysis is compatible with the perspective of other
actors in the crime triangle
• Scripts can be conceived from the perspective of the
offender, victim, and/or guardian
• This substantially improves the capacity to prevent crime
Case Study - Organised crime in Durham, UK
• “Typically less than 6% of over 1,500 organised crime groups
(OCG)… within the UK were being targeted” (Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, 2006)
• Scanning
o 2009 Durham Constabulary undertook to identify the OCG operating in
their jurisdiction
o Then analysed the threat posed by each group
o Used a nationally accredited threat matrix to assess actual and potential
impact on 6 levels
1. Injury to victims/others
2. Harm to community
3. Reputation/political effects in relation to police/government
4. Criminal capability/capacity
5. Boundaries or ability to cross borders
6. Economic impact on society
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Case study: organised crime in Durham, UK
• Scanning
o Process identified 1 OCG as the highest priority
o 13 individuals classified as core members
• 90 convictions between them and all but 2 were male
o OCG diverse in activity: fraud, illegal dumping of waste, extortion, and
theft
o Named two streets after themselves to emphasize power and influence
o Lived close to each other
o Had no visible income, paid no tax, and claimed social security
o Directly contradicted their large houses and obvious wealth
• Police decided to adopt a POP approach aimed at
o Reducing financial profit of the OCG, dismantling the OCG, and
preventing the OCG from reinventing itself
o As opposed to targeting apprehensions and convictions
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Case study 2: organised crime in Durham, UK
• Analysis
o Family structure and roles were investigated
o 3 offenders were responsible for two-thirds of the convictions (one of
them accounted for 40% of the 90 convictions)
o Offences by frequency related to
• the Theft Act: theft, handling stolen goods, aggravated vehicle taking, theft
of/from a vehicle, taking conveyance without authority, burglary, and going
equipped for theft
• the Road Traffic Act: driving without a licence, driving whilst uninsured, and
dangerous driving
• the Public Order Act: using threatening, abusive, insulting words or behaviour
against others
o A small number of ‘enforcers’ were identified
o The offenders involved themselves in small dodgy things (civil and
criminal) in order to achieve the big dodgy things, making themselves
vulnerable to police intervention
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Case study 2: organised crime in Durham, UK
• Response
o Team approached, mobilising all interested agencies (commercial and
public) to share information and pool resources to deliver the most
effective SCP response, targeted at the main offenders
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Case study: organised crime in Durham, UK
• Traffic calming devices installed to reduce speeding on main
streets
o Increase risk – ANPR on all OCG vehicles
o Reduce rewards – Proceeds of Crime Act used to confiscate money
obtained by crime during vehicle stops
o Remove excuses
• High police presence to challenge low-level criminal behaviour
o Increase risk – monitor OCG TV licence, mortgages, bank accounts,
mobile phones, travel. Install CCTV throughout the village, target
vehicles belonging to OCG relating to traffic offences
o Reduce rewards – preventing illegal property development and
enforcing planning notices (resulting in demolition of properties),
preventing purchasing of community centre land
o Remove excuses – public notices to all residents about noise nuisance
prevention, making rules clear
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Case study 2: organised crime in Durham, UK
• Assessment
o Undertaken by Lancaster University
o Examined impact on OCG members: intelligence and convictions
o Examined perception of community and police
o Threat matrix assessment showed the OCG’s threat had reduced
significantly – no longer ranked first in the area
o Two-thirds of targeted offenders had reduced involvement in criminal
activity
o Intervention had galvanized community spirit and moral of police
o Longer-term monitoring required to maintain successes
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Lessons from today
• There are a range of prevention strategies targeting locations, not dependent on police intervention
• Understanding your problem and responding in a specific, targeted manner are crucial
• Good scanning and analysis is crucial for
o Identifying the various types of hot spots and risky facilities
o Implementing CPTED in an effective way
o Using CCTV in a targeted, problem-specific manner
• Displacement isn’t inevitable
o If anything, expect a diffusion of benefits of targeted interventions
• The epidemiology of repeat offender problems are unique in each context
• Effective crime reduction interventions need to be tailored to each city and its unique offending patterns
• The development of an effective intervention starts with analysis
• Analysis helps identify what your problem is and target interventions to reduce offending
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Discussion points
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• Do you think we can do more than we do to ‘handle’ repeat
offenders?
• Who is responsible for handling repeat offenders?
• Is it ethical to target organized crime groups in the way
discussed here?
