A variety of strategies can be implemented by members of a community to prevent crime by targeting various factors that contribute to criminal activities (Sutton, Cherney & White 2008). There are different approaches to the prevention of criminal activities. Initiatives towards the prevention of crime can succeed if people get enlightened about the variety of approaches that can be used in the process. The environmental strategy used to prevent crime is by using those situational methods that aim at preventing criminal activities. Such methods modify the environment in preventing the occurrence of criminal activities (Weatherburn, 2004). Social measures in crime prevention are concerned with the socio-economic factors that cause criminal activities.
Environmental crime prevention measures are meant to change the present characteristics of the environment, which are likely to cause the occurrence of criminal activities. This includes the situational approach, which is a crime prevention method that depends on the fact that crime is an opportunistic event and works towards limiting the opportunities used by criminals to engage in unlawful activities (Tonry & Farrington 1995). Broader planning initiatives in crime prevention are meant to reduce criminal activities through the management of the landscape environment. This involves strategies such as creating safer places that are not prone to crimes to make people feel safer.
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The community can adopt preventive measures against crime that are social and those that try to change the underlying social and economic factors that influence criminal activities. This crime prevention approach addresses those methods that take a long time before becoming fruitful such as improved housing, improved health and education, and improved community cohesion by means of community development (Welsh & Farrington, 2012). The risk of people engaging in crimes or becoming victims of criminal activities is high in communities that do not have social unity and are socially excluded from other communities. Community development may highly influence the behavior of those people who live in such communities by changing the social organization of such communities.
Response
A variety of models have been used as a way to categorize activities that can be termed as crime prevention (Van Dijk & de Waard 1991). It is crucial to get a clear understanding of the meaning of preventive measures on crime as a way to determine the methods that can be used in the prevention interventions (Lind et al., 2004). This is as well effective in coming up with crime prevention interventions that help in the development of effective programs and projects that aim at preventing crimes (Morgan & Homel, 2013).
Some key elements in environmental crime prevention underlie the situational approach measure. The main factors that underline criminal activities that are a result of the current situation include factors such as routine activity and crime pattern, analyzing the specific crime problems and the factors that contribute to crime, classifying the prevention measures and evaluating the available strategies that can be implemented in solving the problem.
The implementation of crime prevention projects aiming at crimes that are committed due to situations such as shoddy work well when the targeted crime problem is in a specific context. This involves the analysis of present crime problems, including their causes. The method requires adequate consultations so that the community can get involved in the whole process. Community development as a crime prevention measure consists of the implementation of community-based programs that includes all members of community participation.
This process included the analyzing of possible factors within a community that contributes to exclusion and taking into consideration the capacity of that particular community to implement change. There should be increased opportunities for members of the community to take part in crime prevention programs and should be allowed to take part in making decisions as well as in managing those activities that have an impact on their lives. Community-wide program implementation has experienced challenges, which are linked to the broadened scale of their respective roll-out efforts (Kurlychek, Bushway & Reuter 2006). Such initiatives can control the high rate of crimes within communities.
References
Kurlychek, M. C., Brame, R., & Bushway, S. D. (2006). Scarlet letters and recidivism: Does an old criminal record predict future offending? Criminology & Public Policy , 5 (3), 483-504.
Lind, B., Chen, S., Weatherburn, D., & Mattick, R. (2004). The effectiveness of methadone maintenance treatment in controlling crime: An Australian aggregate-level analysis. British Journal of Criminology , 45 (2), 201-211.
Morgan, A., & Homel, P. (2013). Evaluating crime prevention: Lessons from large-scale community crime prevention programs. Trends and issues in crime and criminal justice , (458), 1.
Sutton, A., Cherney, A., & White, R. (2008). Crime Prevention: Principles. Perspectives and Practices .
Tonry, M., & Farrington, D. P. (1995). Strategic approaches to crime prevention. Crime and Justice , 19 , 1-20.
Van Dijk, J., & De Waard, J. (1991, September). A two-dimensional typology of crime prevention projects: With a bibliography. In Criminal Justice Abstracts (Vol. 23, No. 3, pp. 483-503).
Weatherburn, D. J. (2004). Law and order in Australia: Rhetoric and reality . Federation Press.
Welsh, B. C., & Farrington, D. P. (2012). Crime prevention and public policy. The Oxford handbook of crime prevention , 3-19.
