NCJ Number
176635
Date Published
1998
Length
235 pages
Annotation
While traditional texts focus on factors causing individuals to commit crimes, this text analyzes how society encourages or inhibits crime in the routine activities of daily life and challenges the conventional wisdom of crime control by demonstrating how simple and inexpensive changes in the physical environment and patterns of daily activities can substantially decrease crime rates.
Abstract
The first chapter examines fallacies about crime and notes source of information about crime that affect perceptions of and attitudes toward crime. These sources include police and victim reports, self-reported offending, business data, medical reports, mortality statistics, and systematic observations. The second chapter covers factors in the decision to commit crime, with emphasis on temptations, controls, and responsibility. The third chapter looks at predatory crime, fights and their antecedents, vice dynamics, and what is referred to as the general chemistry of crime. Other chapters deal with crime and various forms of local life, juvenile crime, schools and crime, crime linkages for individual offenders, victimization, and system dynamics of crime. Final chapters consider environmental criminology, residential crime prevention, situational crime prevention, and crime forecasting. Main points are summarized at the end of each chapter, and learning projects are included. References, tables, and figures