NCJ Number
209845
Journal
Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice Volume: 47 Issue: 2 Dated: April 2005 Pages: 271-292
Date Published
April 2005
Length
22 pages
Annotation
This article reviews the field of situational crime prevention and argues that the situational perspective should be used to understand recent crime prevention strategies in Canada.
Abstract
Over the past 20 years Canada has focused crime prevention efforts at the provincial, territorial, and national levels within four main prevention categories: legal prevention, social prevention, social development, and situational prevention. Past situational crime prevention efforts have tended to use architecture and urban planning as place improvement processes that can reduce crime by reducing the criminal attractiveness of the environment. The authors posit that in order to consider crime prevention from a situational perspective, attention should be focused on the complexities of how and why people develop routines that bring them into a crime-potential context. This perspective takes into account friendship networks, socio-economic conditions, and individual conditions as well as the environmental conditions that encourage criminal behavior. When the complexities involved with criminal behavior are acknowledged, crime prevention programs can be developed at a general level that are aimed at everyone, not just high-risk groups. The primary, secondary, and tertiary crime prevention models are described, followed by a discussion of how to effectively embed crime prevention programs within the fabric of society by establishing ongoing and long-term funding. Notes, references