Police and Crime prevention university 2000words essay

Lecture 1

Opportunity theories of crime

· Routine activity theory (and the problem analysis triangle)

· Crime pattern theory

· Rational choice perspective

Opportunity: In contrast…

Opportunity present itself as a choice itself

A crime is a result of the opportunity

Routine activity theory

· A daily routine that created an opportunity to have crime

· 3 minimal elements

· A likely offender

· A suitable target

· The absence of a capable guardian

Problem analysis triangle

· Problem analysis triangle was derived from routine activity theory

Motivated offender

· Handlers

· The offender is driven by a need of poverty or drug addiction etc.

· Capable guardian

· The offender is control by handler, but the target/victim is control by capable guardians

· Manager (they control time and space)

Crime pattern theory

· Incident cluster base on a number of factors

· Behaviour

· Places

· Persons

· Times

Its easy to commit crime in places you know and go to regularly

· Cognitive awareness space

Patterns also explain variation in victimisation over time and space

· Hour of the day

· Day of the week

· Month of the year

Crime pattern in action

· Analysis of burglary choice in Perth

· Distance decay (the further the place from criminal, the lesser the crime has) especially juvenile as they are lazy.

Rational choice perspective

· Focus on offender decision making, if they commit a crime they will have their purpose and target after that then it made a rational choice.

· Done on purpose, e.g theft, kidnap etc.

Offences have different purpose of why they commit the crime, e.g. stealing car; for joy, for selling the car, to go home, emergency use.

· Decision to offend are constrained by time, cognitive ability and information (Offender don think out of the consequences, they only base on their decision)

· Bounded rationality

· Within the context, to that person, it made sense, at the time

· ‘Perception’ of the situation and of risks and reward is more important that actual circumstances

· Decisions vary by the different stages of the offense and among different offenders

Ten principles of opportunity and crime

Opportunity do play a role, if there is no opportunity no point in doing.

1. Opportunity play a role in causing all the crime

· E.g. in pub when they are larger crowd, poorly design bar and fight break out.

2. Crime opportunity that are highly specific

· Burglary specifically want cash or jewelry for easier to carry and burglary can look down the house on the street for burglaries but the specificity could change is walking down the street and target specific home.

3. Crime opportunity are concentrated in time and space

· Time and space to commit crime is not evenly distributed

· People/things aren’t suitable target

· Unsuitable location, even location is suitable, time is dependent

· Controllers (handlers, managers, guardians) can’t be there all the time

· Motivated offender can’t be anywhere all the time

4. Crime opportunities depend on everyday movements

· Offenders and targets shift according to routine activities (e.g. school, work, leisure)

· Some offender seek crowd (pickpocket, snatcher)

· Some offender seek for absence of people (burglars visit house in the morning when there are no people at home)

· Offenders offend in places they know about and can get to

· New road/railway line establish new crime risk

· The relative location of things (nodes, paths and edge)

· A high school next to a shopping center

5. One crimes produce opportunity for another

· Embarking on one crime can lead to more crime at the same time

· Residential burglary

· E.g. thought no people at home but there is a small girl over there so the offender might rape her/weapon assault that lead to more crime committed

· E.g. road rage. Dangerous/reckless driving + assault + homicide

6. Some product offer more tempting crime opportunity

· Product are more attractive to thieves when they are

· Concealable – easier to remove, transport and dispose

· Removable – you have to take it to steal it

· Available – macro, meso and micro level availability

· Valuable – without value, its not worth stealing

· Enjoyable – related to disposability of items – greated demand

· Disposable – stolen goods are generally converted into cash/drugs

CRAVES items can change over time as a function of market forces (the life cycle of theory)

· Stable craved – jewellery, gold, cash

· Variable craved – small electronic goods, clothes

7. Social and technological changes produce new crime opportunity

· E.g. new laptop that is attracting people to steal (technology advancement has also created clone phone)

· Mass produced consumer goods pass through a life cycle

· Innovation – restricted, special small group of consumers

· Growth – products cheaper, easier to use, more common, desired

· Mass market – product become endemic

· Saturation – most people who want one, already have one

· If the goods are at the most valuable period (growth and masss), it will make people have the opportunity to steal but when it reach saturation period than it is unlikely to be stolen

8. Opportunities for crime can be reduce

· Lock car/house well

· Keeping money in safe place

· Telling your children to avoid strangers

· Crime prevention through environmental design

· E.g. hot spot policing, evidence-base policing, problem oriented policing.

9. Reducing opportunity does not usually displace crime

· Geographic displacement – different place

· Crime can be move, e.g. there is a huge dog in the targeted house therefore the target is changed.

· Temporal displacement – different time

· Target displacement – different target

· Tactical displacement – different strategy to commit the same crime

· Type displacement – different type of crime

10. Focus opportunity reduction can produce wider decline in crime

· Prevention measures in one area can lead to reduction in another nearby a diffusion of benefit

· Use technology to the advantage, cctv installed.

· Daily counting of valuables item in the warehouse reduce theft of all item, not just the one being count.

Lecture 1 (part 2)

Problem oriented policing (POP)

· An alternative approach to crime reduction that challenges police officer to understand the underline situation and dynamic that give rise to recurring crime problems and to develop appropriate responses addresses these underline conditions.

Goldstein adopt POP, 4 stage solving approach

· Scan data, examine data, look for pattern

· Subject these patterns to in-depth analysis for the causes (e.g. is it cause of opportunity?)

· Find ways to respond earlier to reduce the likely hood of the crime recurred

· Assess the effectiveness of these respond, is it working?

Problem oriented policing problems (crime)

· Offense type (e.g. drug dealing, theft, molest)

· People involved (e.g. victim, offender, controller)

· Location time and space (e.g. when, what time, which day, how often)

For a problem to be identify, there is a need to have several of the same type of problems, use pop to address each particular problem

Specific solution for specific problems

· Auto crime

· Theft for motor vehicle

· Theft for car for use of other crime activities

· For chopping up

· For transport

· For resale

· For juvenile joyriding

· Examine base on arrest

· The experience

· Disorganize/organize group activities

· Where is it occurring

· Age

Tightening the focus (base on finding)

· Additional analysis

· Concentrate on where is the crime scene is

· Project focus to prevent car stealing

· Better lighting

· Improved fencing

· More supervision for attendants

Why use POP?

· Scalable

· Can it address the community problem?

· Flexible

· Can it be applied to other forms of theft?

· Applicable

· Is it useful to facilitate law enforcement?

· Doable

· Police officers can begin using these principle immediately

CHEERS to defining a problem

A problem is a recurring set of related harmful events in the community that members of the public expect the police to address

· The CHEERS test

· Community

· Who is the community is affected?

· Members of the public must experience the harmful events

· E.g. individual/businesses/government agencies

· Harmful

· What are the harms created by the problems?

· People or institutions must suffer harm

· Property loss or damage

· Injury and death

· Serious mental anguish

· Undermining the capacity of the police

· Expectation

· What is the expectation for the response?

· Some members of the community must expect the police to address the causes of harm

· Citizens calls

· Community meeting

· Media coverage

· Events

· What types of event contribute to the problem?

· You must be able to describe the event that makes up the problems

· A burglary of a home

· One person hitting another

· Two people exchanging money and sex

· Recurring

· How often do these events recur?

· The events must be recur

· Acute troubles

· Appear suddenly

· Can sometimes quickly disappeared

· If they persist it will become chronic

· Chronic problems

· Persist over a long period of time (e.g. appear and disappear, comes and goes.)

· Similarity

· How are the events similar?

· The recurring events must have something in common

· Same offender

· Same type of victim

· Same time/space

· Same tools/weapons involved

CHEERS help distinguish POP problems from other trouble

· Single events

· Without recurrence, nothing can be prevented

· These aren’t POP-problems without a reasonable prospect of a repeat

· Neighbourhood (‘areas’ people think are the problems)

· Be specific in your intervention

· Don’t assume similar problems because of geographical proximity

· Status condition (things people don’t like)

· Kids wagging after school, homeless people.

· Lack of characteristic of ‘harm’ and ‘events’

Know what kind of problem

· A wide range of criminals problems meet the CHEERS test

· Classifying the problems using 2 criteria

· Environment

· Is the first dimension for classifying a problem

· Behavior

· Second dimension for classifying a problem

Environment

· Environment regulates

· The target available

· The activities people can engage in

· Who controls the locations

· 11 distinct environments for most common police problems

Behavior

· Helps pinpoint important aspects of

· Harm

· Intent

· Offender target relationship

· 6 kind of behavior

· Predatory

· Consensual

· Conflicts

· Incivilities

· Endangerment

· Misuse of police

How do offender find suitable target?

· 3 main ways

· Through personal knowledge of the victim (opportunity)

· Through work

· Through overlapping activity spaces

· Remembering crime patterns theory, nodes, paths and edge

· Offender go where they know

· Potentially a slight ‘buffer’ zone

· Study the movement of victim and offender

· Study journey to crime

· Temporal and geographic variations

How hot spots develop

· 3 kind of crime hot spot places

· Crime generator

· Large number of people are attracted = large number of opportunity

· Shopping center

· Transport hub

· Festival

· Sporting event

· Crime attractor

· Places with many criminal opportunities that are well known to offenders and offender are drawn to these places

· Prostitution

· Drugs area

· Crime enablers (no security)

· Places where there is very little regulation of behavior

· Unmonitored carparks will result in increase of vehicle theft

· Allows loitering near cars when previously wasn’t possible

· Increase thefts from vehicle

· Places can be crime neutral

· Tend to experience fewer crime

· Crime that do occur are relatively unpatterned

· Don’t attract offenders or targets and adequate controllers in place

· Can be useful comparisons for crime hot spots – unpick the differences

Problem analysis triangle - Hotspots emerge when

· The numbers of target increases

· The number of motivated offenders increases

· The level of control at site decline

Remember the 80:20 rule

· Crime opportunities are concentrated in time and space

· The 80:20 rule suggest that 80% of the crime are committed by 20% of the offender/criminal

· In pure terms

· Repeat location problems

· Repeat offender problems

· Offender continue his crime spree until he is caught

· Repeat victim problems

A range of stages for determining if you have got a crime problem

· CHEERS

· Environment and behaviour

· Journey to crime

· Hot spots

· 80:20 clustering

Lecture 2

Geometry of crime place

· ‘The geometry of crime relates the place in which we spend our time, and the pathways between them, to criminal offending and victimization’

· The victim and offender cross path and it result to a crime.

· Routine activity theory

· With the routine activity theory, it suggests that crime occur when a motivated offender with a suitable target and lack of capable guardian. Based on daily routine

· Rational choice theory

· A criminal makes a choice of committing the crime or not committing the crime

· Geometry of crime

· The path of the criminal and the target of meet that result a crime

What are place problems?

· Repeat location problems

· Involve different offenders and different target

· Interaction in the same place (time/space)

· when a new potential offender/target in the neighborhood + coincidental time and space

· These occur when

· New potential offender

· New potential target

· Coincide time and space

· In the absence of effective place management

Hot spots (where crime is rampant)

· A geographic concept

· Place with a disproportionately high rate of crime

· Remember the drivers

· Crime generator

· Crime attractors

· Crime enablers

Three basic forms of chronic hot spots

· Hot dots

· Specific location with high crime levels

· Hot lines

· Street segments where crime is concentrated

· Hot area

· Suburban areas where crime is concentrated

Hot spots can be multi-faceted and multi-tiered

· Homicide

· Gang territories

· Open air drug market

What can we do?

· Crime generator

· Cause; many unprotected targets

· Response; increase protection

· Crime attractor

· Cause; attracts offender

· Response; discourage offender from coming

· Question; what is attracting offender? How to change?

· Crime enabler

· Cause; erosion of controls

· Response; restore guardianship, handling or place management

· Question; who can control?

Crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) process

· CPTED evaluates

· The crime environment

· Features of the environment that facilitate crime or undesirable behavior

· CPTED attempts to remove/reduce opportunities

· Environmental design

· Use of the environmental

· CPTED is a crime prevention program

· Focuses on design and productive use

· Target hardening and security measures are not the primary means for improvement

· Many of the tools for CPTED fall outside the purview of policing

CPTED consider

· Building design

· Site layout and site amenities

· 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 behavior

CPTED objective 1: control access

· Control access by creating both real and perceptual barriers to entry and movement (e.g. condo)

· Who belong in the place

· When do they belong here

· Where are they allowed to be when they are here

· Examples

· Fences, tree lines, hedge define boundaries

· Gates and doors limit entry to a site

· Using CCTV, use of locks/alarm

CPTED objective 2; use design to increase visibility

· Take advantage of design to provide opportunities to see and to be seen

· Include opportunities to see adjacent properties or the site perimeter

· Possibly develop opportunities to see parking area, walkways, other area from inside the building

· These design need support by

· Policies and procedure

· Potential observers who look for and report unusual behavior

· Example

· Supported by CCTV or guards

· Building location can create or remove views

· Window afford view

· Lighting improve ability to observe activity and identify people

CPTED objected 3; use design to define ownership

· Use design to define ownership and encourage maintenance of territories

· Administrative support

How does CPTED relate to POP? (similarity)

· Both consider a wide variety of problem(crime)

· Both require systematic analyses of events and other factor that contribute to crime and disorder

· Both generate strategies that are tailored to a problem or location

· Both engage citizens, government agencies and police.

· CPTED is one aspect of POP

· CPTED focus on environmental responses and making the environment safe such as getting rid of the potential alley such as dark alley dark spot, getting rid of potential attractors of crime by increasing the lighting.

CCTV

· Improve lighting

· Presence of visible formal security

· Broadcasting CCTV; implementation and successes

· Reduce fear of crime

· Facilitation of police investigation

· Timely provision of medical assistance

· Place management

· Information gathering

· Diffusion of benefit to non-covered areas

5 ways in which this displacement criticism suggest that crime is moved around

· Geographical displacement

· Crime could be move from one location to another

· Temporal displacement

· Crime could move from one time to another

· Target displacement

· Crime could be directed away from one target to another

· Tactical displacement

· One method of committing crime could be substituted for another

· Crime type of displacement

· One kind of crime could be substituted for another

About displacement

· If we accept crime is based on opportunities, then we should not expect displacement as a rule

· Identifying opportunities will be influenced by experience

· Experience will be context specific

· This will be influence by a number of factors

· How motivated is the offender?

· How much extra effort is required? to find and exploit an alternative

· How much knowledge do offenders have of other opportunities?

· Routine activity & crime pattern theory suggest it won’t automatically displace

· Mental map

· Aware of place

Benefit extent beyond the intervention

· 2 potential mechanisms for this

· Discouragement

· Changing targets involve extra effort or reduce reward

· Deterrence

· Offender is uncertain about the increased risk of offending

Lecture 2 Part 2 – responding to offender

Why do we get repeat offenders?

· Risk factor

· Expertise

· Opportunity

What can we do about repeat offender?

· Early in life

· Problem focuses approach

· Development prevention

· Situation focuses approach

· Opportunity reduction

Motivated offender

· From the offender point of view

· Gain/Need

· Poverty or a drug addict

· Beliefs; that some crimes aren’t wrong

· Society/environment/experience; peer pressure, lack of education

· Offender can be controlled by handlers

· Can be someone who knows the offender well and is in a position to exert some control over their action

· Informal

· Parents, sliblings, teachers, friends

· Formal

· Probation and parole officers

What do we know about offenders?

· Men commit more crime then women

· Boys grow up in different environment

· More freedom

Why do we get repeat offenders?

perhaps the very act of incarceration stains their record and labels them, making them unable to reintegrate successfully into society and they resort to their previous crimes to get by (like burglary and theft)?

· Why?

· Impulsive individual, weak social attachment to others tend to get into trouble more, better opportunities

· People expose to crime and disorder opportunities take advantage of them and adjust accordingly

· Both of these theories cant be true

· Impulsive individual with weak attachments require routine exposures to crime opportunities to become repeat offenders

· Component of a holistic explanation

· Childhood development risk factors

· Trajectories and turning point

· Expertise as an alternative/additional explanation

· The role of opportunity

Risk factor for criminality

· Poor concentration, impulsivity and daring

· Low intelligence and attainment

· Poor parental supervision, erratic and harsh discipline and child abuse

· Broken homes without affectionate mother

· Parental conflicts

· Criminals, antisocial and alcoholic parents

· Socio-economic deprivation, notably large families, low family income and poor housing.

Rethinking risk; trajectories and turning points

· No universal acceptance that risk factor encountered early in life determine the future

· No evidence for ‘life course persistent’ offender

· Stress the significance of ‘intentionality’

· The men in the sample had made choice about how to act

· They were not passive object of their early childhood experience or biological attributes.

· Becoming employed, married, joining the army

Nothing succeed like success

· Successful offending can lead to more offending

· Offenders, like others, learn from doing

· Offenders learn from each other

· Information is spread through individuals working in small groups

How do we find repeated offender

· Repeat offender can be difficult to detect as they are not in the database

· Intelligence

· Quality in highly variable

· Seldom comprehensive

· Systematic interviews with offenders and their associates can reveal very useful information for understanding problems

Repeat victimization

· It can be a person also

· Offenders targeting may be achieve by detecting repeated offences (same household/person)

· This approach avoids allegation of violation of civil liberties

· Focus more on troublesome subset of acts as it must be very careful to scan, if scan wrongly it can cause accusation.

Offender self-select

· Present themselves for police action

· Must separate actions from condition

· Targeting people with lots of tattoo because of a known of prevalence of tattoo within offender will be harassment

· The actions must also justify official attention to be effective gateways to enforcement

Reducing the likelihood of a motivated offender

Stop at 40 mins of recording

Lecture 4 part 1

Essay; A plan, but can have different method and stages + argument

Overview for part 1

Slide 39 lecture 1

· Scanning

· Analysis

· Reponses

· Assessment

SARA and CHEERS

· Relate to problem orientate policing

Why scan?

· To identify and select (POP problem)

· To do this, it need to do the CHEERS test

· Problems can be define