Crime Prevention

Crime prevention refers to the policies, programs, and practices designed to reduce the occurrence of crime and the fear of crime, either by addressing its social causes or by limiting opportunities for offending. Approaches are commonly divided into social or developmental prevention, which targets conditions such as poverty, family stress, and school failure, and situational prevention, which alters environments to make crime harder or riskier. Ronald Clarke developed situational crime prevention, drawing on rational choice theory, while Lawrence Cohen and Marcus Felson’s routine activity theory argues that crime occurs when motivated offenders, suitable targets, and absent guardians converge. Oscar Newman’s defensible space and C. Ray Jeffery’s crime prevention through environmental design emphasize the built environment, and Jane Jacobs stressed natural surveillance by neighbors. Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay’s social disorganization theory underpins community-based initiatives, and Robert Sampson’s work on collective efficacy shows the protective role of neighborhood trust. Critics warn that prevention measures can displace crime, increase surveillance, and exclude marginalized groups. Evaluation research by David Farrington and others examines which programs work. Crime prevention remains central to research on criminology, urban planning, policing, and social policy.