Regulating Opportunities: Multiple Roles for Civil Remedies in Situational Crime Prevention (From Civil Remedies and Crime Prevention, P 67-88, 1998, Lorraine Green Mazerolle and Jan Roehl, eds. - See NCJ-175510)

• NCJ Number: 175513
• Author(s): M J Smith
• Date Published: 1998
• Length: 22 pages
• Sale Source: Criminal Justice Press/Willow Tree Press
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: *This document is currently unavailable from NCJRS.

Annotation

Situational crime prevention theory and related models and concepts are used to emphasize the broad reach that civil remedies can have in limiting opportunities for crime.

Abstract

The discussion explains the nature of civil remedies, some of their potential advantages and disadvantages, theoretical concepts developed to explain the operation of situational crime prevention, and the direct and indirect roles that civil remedies can have in situational crime prevention. It uses a script-analytic approach to describe how crime prevention measures can be focused in a crime-specific and situation-specific manner at the successive points in the crime where various criminal decisions are made. The analysis notes that civil remedies have a direct role in the implementation of situational controls as formal inducements for those who influence or control crime opportunities. Civil remedies also have an indirect role in that they influence the decisions of those who control crime opportunities or increase the likelihood that potential offenders will perceive that situational controls have been implemented. The analysis concludes that the decision to choose one inducement over another to affect a particular situational control requires that the intervenor evaluate how well it will work, necessary and available resources, and potential negative effects. Case example involving graffiti tag writing, notes, and 53 references