Reducing the Capacity to Offend: Restricting Resources for Offending (From Handbook of Crime Prevention and Community Safety, P 306-328, 2005, Nick Tilley, ed, -- See NCJ-214069)

• NCJ Number: 214081
• Author(s): Martin Gill
• Date Published: 2005
• Length: 23 pages
• Sale Source: Willan Publishing
• Publication Format: Book Chapter
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United Kingdom

Annotation

This chapter focuses on how offenders commit crimes and the resources they depend on to do so, with an emphasis on interrupting access to the means necessary to commit crimes.

Abstract

According to many criminological perspectives, crimes are committed when the opportunity to commit the crime is coupled with the resources necessary to carry it out. The main argument presented by the author is that an effective crime reduction strategy would focus on undermining access to the resources needed to commit crimes. In order to inform such a strategy, it is important to listen to offenders speak of how they commit crimes and the resources they require to commit them. The author reviews the theoretical perspectives that focus on the criminal event, including situational crime prevention theory and routine activities theory. The gaps in the research on how criminals offend are identified before the author turns to a discussion of how the gaps in knowledge can be filled by collecting information from offenders themselves. General areas of interest that would be useful in learning about offender resources are suggested, such as the features of a target that make it attractive, the features of an environment that help or hinder an offense, and the tools needed to bypass security measures. Offenders should be questioned about how they got caught and lessons they learned from their failed crime. A case study of Jo, the shoplifter is offered to illustrate the type of information that can be gleaned from studying an offenders’ point of view. Seven core resources of offenders are identified and illustrated through the case study: resources for handling emotional states, resources derived from personality traits, knowledge-based resources, skills-based resources, resources derived from physical traits, tools, and crime facilitators such as weapons. In closing, the author encourages increased research attention on reducing offenders’ capacity to offend. Box, notes, references