NCJ Number
223304
Journal
Criminal Justice Policy Review Volume: 19 Issue: 2 Dated: June 2008 Pages: 164-180
Date Published
June 2008
Length
17 pages
Annotation
This article discusses the uses of the ambient population (a 24-hour average estimate of the population present in a spatial area) to better inform crime prevention initiatives with the primary-secondary-tertiary (PST) framework.
Abstract
This article presents a new tool, the LandScan Global Population Database (ambient population), which can be used in the formation of crime prevention policy within the organizational framework of the primary-secondary-tertiary (PST) model of crime prevention. The PST model of crime prevention provides a schema for understanding and organizing an extensive array of crime prevention activities that may operate on vastly different time horizons. Correspondingly, the ambient population has uses for crime prevention initiatives that can be employed at these same time horizons as the PST model of crime prevention. It has been shown that the ambient population can be used to understand current crime areas (tertiary prevention), to identify areas at high risk of developing a crime problem (secondary prevention), and to understand the nature of and relationships between population movements and crime to better inform policy used in the built environment (primary prevention). Crime prevention initiatives are often conceptualized working at PST levels. Primary prevention efforts address the underlying social, economic, and physical environmental conditions that generate crime; secondary prevention efforts focus on people, places, and social conditions that are at high risk of crime; whereas tertiary prevention efforts are directed toward already existing and specific crime problems. This article introduces a relatively new dataset that can be used to supplement other data in crime prevention activities, the ambient population. Tables, figures, notes, and references