NCJ Number
212855
Date Published
2003
Length
23 pages
Annotation
This chapter discusses the features of a conceptual framework, the Conjunction of Criminal Opportunity (CCO) and how it can inform policy-oriented learning about the interactions between crime and control.
Abstract
The Conjunction of Criminal Opportunity (CCO) framework represents an advance in thinking about the interrelationships between crime and control, in so far as it emphasizes an understanding about the outcomes of these relationships and how they are affected by contextual factors like culture, law, and environment. CCO originated in efforts to describe and classify some 2,000 diverse ordinary crime prevention schemes from England’s Safer Cities Program. CCO bridges two major cultural gaps that have divided crime prevention practitioners, policymakers and theorists: (1) between situational versus offender-oriented prevention and (2) between criminal justice/enforcement/ repressive approaches versus civil prevention. CCO serves as a precision tool, supplying consistent terminology to describe the content of preventive action, its implementation, and the detailed causal mechanisms by which it works. The CCO philosophy is that high investment in practitioner familiarization and training produces high yield in geared up performance against organized crime. The CCO framework can potentially support a “what works” knowledge base for preventing organized crime in many ways, as well as facilitate the pooling of knowledge between those who prevent organized and ordinary crime. References