Crime prevention strategies and effectiveness

Criminal Justice - Crime Prevention

THEORIES of CRIME PREVENTION

The Nature of Crime Prevention:

Crime is a human invention that derives from the concept of societal laws; without codified laws, there is no such thing as crime, because crime is simply the violation of those established laws. Crime prevention comprises several specific function, such as police intervention, criminal investigation, apprehension, prosecution, and corrections. Collectively, the various functions of the entire criminal justice system also serves another important role as a deterrence to future criminal conduct.

In principle, crime includes everything from technical violations of misdemeanors and other even less serious levels of penal violation that are actually inconsequential in their effect to the most serious types of crimes that threaten the health, safety, and welfare of other individuals, sometimes in very large numbers. Crime prevention is purposeful effort to reduce criminal conduct by deterrence before the fact, and by investigating and punishing criminal conduct after the fact, where and to the extent it is in the reasonable interest of society to do so.

Crime prevention takes on myriad forms, including "first-line" police street patrols, detective investigation services, forensic science, and white collar crime detection and intervention. In police patrol services, crime prevention may include elements of informal policies and procedures in the street and in many facets of law enforcement, it may include baited "sting" operations. While the concept of crime prevention is very broad, virtually every aspect of law enforcement functions requires prioritizing specific categories of criminal conduct because equally strict enforcement of every type of crime is both impractical and also of dubious value, regardless.

Achieving Crime Prevention:

Quantifying crime prevention requires defining the degree to which enforcement is first, desirable, and second, practical. Applying equally strict enforcement to minor or merely "technical" violations of law that hardly affect others might reduce the quality of life in society instead of improving it. For example, in many jurisdictions motor vehicle codes are classified as penal (rather than civil) infractions that are arrestable offenses under strict application of the state police power through authorized law enforcement functions. However, it is doubtful that (1) taking enforcement action against every perceptible violation of law or (2) implementing physical arrest wherever authorized is in the interest of the driving public or society. On the other hand, certain types of crimes (including some that fall within the purview of vehicular laws) require a zero-tolerance approach by virtue of their capacity to harm other individuals and society as a whole. Furthermore, practical considerations such as the availability of personnel, physical resources, and budget require prioritization wholly apart from the question of whether or not absolute enforcement across the board would be desirable even if it were feasible in a practical sense. In addition to prioritizing the types of crime considered most appropriate for prevention efforts, effective crime prevention requires appropriate allocation of manpower, resources, and funding to the various individual functions of deterrence, investigation, apprehension, prosecution, and corrections.