NCJ Number
125370
Journal
Journal of Police Science and Administration Volume: 17 Issue: 3 Dated: (September 1990) Pages: 155-162
Date Published
1990
Length
8 pages
Annotation
The last decade witnessed the rise of the environmental theme in crime control and policing.
Abstract
Although police reactions to crime seldom manifest anything like a clear environmental crime control strategy, the citizens of Amsterdam were drastically confronted with such strategies in 1984 by vigorous attempts to control the conditions on one street in the inner city. Deteriorating public safety required the dissipation by force of drug-dealing assemblies and a permanent guard that withdrew 130 officers from regular police tasks. This quasi-military operating procedure illustrated several ambiguities in dealing with crime. First, it is not sharply definable when conditions in a certain area become an intolerable threat to public safety. This raises questions about the delimitation of space as well as the amount of crime that justifies quasi-military operations. Second, there is no self-evident way to evaluate the outcome of attempts to suppress crime in an area; not even the displacement of offenders in an unambiguous negative outcome. Urban space does not have a uniform or constant meaning, and it is up to the community to establish spatial priorities in crime control. Crime control as a topic has disengaged itself from the technocratic discussion to become a matter of political debate and choice. Contemporary crime control policies seem to imply subtle notions about the socio-spatial organization of the city. The requirements of legitimization and mobilization clearly indicate the political and geographic nature of the subject. These developments are further explained using the Amsterdam experience as illustration. 1 figure, 1 table, 12 references. (Author abstract modified)