NCJ Number
172612
Date Published
1996
Length
13 pages
Annotation
An "insecurity-reduction" policy is defined by three objectives: multifaceted and comprehensive local development, concerted action, and the development of community regulation mechanisms.
Abstract
Changing social and economic conditions are resulting in an increase of minor crimes and misdemeanors that is of concern to citizens but also largely beyond the control of a saturated, blind, and fractured criminal justice system. Reducing the sense of public insecurity can result only from an integrated community approach based on a policy of local development, concerted action that involves community organizations, and the development of community regulation and social-control mechanisms. Organizing a community-based reduction of insecurity is difficult because of social fragmentation within communities; stigmatization of high- crime communities; and the relationship among residential turnover, community evolution, and crime. Four types of policies coexist to support community-based crime regulation: community preservation via investment in the protection and support of the most stable communities, community control of troublemakers, damage reduction and redistribution that focuses on vulnerable groups, and the promotion of social cohesion to forestall the creation of an underclass.