Dominant Approaches to Crime Prevention: Compare and Contrast
This paper examines and compares the dominant approaches to crime prevention used across the criminal justice system in the United States. Drawing on Schneider's consequentialist definition of crime prevention, the paper surveys strategies employed by law enforcement—including situational prevention, community policing, hot spot policing, and crime prevention through social development—before turning to courts and corrections, which rely on deterrence, incapacitation, rehabilitation, and community restraint. The paper also addresses community-based prevention methods such as neighborhood watches and ad hoc law enforcement activities. A concluding comparison evaluates the relative effectiveness of each approach, arguing that community prevention is the most promising strategy because it integrates public participation with formal law enforcement efforts.
- Introduction: Defines crime prevention and introduces dominant approaches
- Law Enforcement Approaches: Situational, community, policing, and social development strategies
- Courts and Corrections Approaches: Deterrence, incapacitation, rehabilitation, and community restraint
- Community-Based Crime Prevention: Neighborhood watches, ad hoc activities, and community policing
- Comparing and Contrasting the Approaches: Similarities and differences across all three institutional actors
- Conclusion: Community prevention identified as most effective overall approach
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What makes this paper effective
- Applies a clear definitional framework at the outset—Schneider's consequentialist approach—to anchor the entire comparison in a shared understanding of what "prevention" means.
- Organizes distinct institutional actors (law enforcement, courts/corrections, community) into separate sections, making parallel comparison straightforward for the reader.
- Supports each approach with specific named programs and models (e.g., SARA, Weed and Seed, electronic monitoring), which adds concrete detail beyond abstract categorization.
- Synthesizes the comparison in a dedicated section rather than only implying differences within individual sections, demonstrating deliberate analytical structure.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates the compare-and-contrast analytical technique by first describing each approach on its own terms and then explicitly identifying shared goals (crime reduction) alongside key differences (pre-crime prevention vs. post-offense intervention). The concluding evaluation goes a step further by offering a reasoned judgment about relative effectiveness, showing that comparison can lead to argumentation rather than merely description.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a definitional introduction, then devotes three body sections to law enforcement, courts and corrections, and community prevention, respectively. A short compare-and-contrast section synthesizes the differences and similarities across all three, and a brief conclusion makes the case for community prevention as the most effective approach. This structure mirrors a classic academic compare-and-contrast essay: define, describe separately, then synthesize.
Introduction
Given the diverse definitions of crime prevention, Schneider approaches the concept from a consequences perspective. He defines it as a program or strategy that serves the purpose of preventing criminal acts or behaviors from occurring (2014). This definition has led to crime prevention being understood as a "reduction in or prevention of specific criminal events" (Schneider, 2014, p. 6). It is also defined in terms of a reduction in the number of criminal offenders, indicating that harm has been either reduced or prevented, and in terms of a reduction in the number of victims harmed. Prevention is regarded as the fourth pillar of the criminal justice system, alongside institutions such as courts, police, and corrections.
Crime prevention has dominant approaches employed by law enforcement, courts, corrections, families, and communities — all components of the criminal justice system. This paper identifies those approaches, evaluates their effectiveness, and considers which is most appropriate for tackling growing crime levels in the United States.
Law Enforcement Approaches
Law enforcement recognizes four dominant approaches to crime prevention: situational prevention, community prevention, policing, and crime prevention through social development (CPSD).
In situational prevention, interventions are designed to deter crime by reducing offenders' opportunities, thereby increasing the difficulty and risk of committing an offense. The techniques used include increasing the effort required to commit a crime, controlling access to potential targets, target hardening, restricting access to tools used in criminal acts, and increasing levels of guardianship or formal surveillance (Shaw & United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2010).
Community prevention, by contrast, focuses on interventions designed to change social institutions and conditions — such as clubs, families, social norms, and peer groups — that may influence offending in residential communities. Risk factors that push individuals toward crime include drug addiction, poverty, low self-esteem, negative peer associations, and dropping out of school. The approaches used in community prevention include community policing, neighborhood watch programs, multidisciplinary efforts, and physical or urban design strategies (Shaw & United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2010).
The policing approach reflects the work of police departments and researchers who have developed different philosophies, strategies, and methods to address increasing crime rates. Hot spot policing is one such strategy, identifying geographic areas with elevated crime concentrations and formulating effective responses to them (Braga & Weisburd, 2010). Police departments have also adopted the SARA model — a four-stage problem-solving process consisting of scanning, analysis, response, and assessment — which directs officers to address underlying causes rather than mere symptoms of crime. Advances in technology have further aided departments by improving inter-agency communication and enabling the analysis of large datasets, helping police identify crime patterns and act preventively.
Crime prevention through social development (CPSD) is a proactive approach guided by the social and economic factors associated with criminal behavior. Its primary concern is keeping crime from occurring in the first place, with the goal of improving quality of life for those at risk. CPSD is therefore preventive in orientation, and its interventions must respond to the changing needs of individuals across the course of their lives. The risk factors addressed by CPSD are targeted through social development programs, services, and policies spanning social services, social housing, health, education, and income security (Schneider, 2014).
Courts and Corrections Approaches
Courts and corrections employ several approaches to crime prevention: deterrence, incapacitation, community restraints, rehabilitation, discipline and challenge, structure, and combinations of rehabilitation with restraint.
Incapacitation involves punishing offenders in ways designed to prevent future crime, either by permanently removing the offender from society or by applying temporary physical restrictions such as incarceration. Capital punishment represents the most severe form of incapacitation; its justification typically rests on deterrence, though whether the death penalty actually deters potential offenders remains a subject of significant debate (Shaw & United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2010).
Rehabilitation and treatment approach criminal behavior differently. An offender undergoes rehabilitation — through counseling sessions and therapy — with the goal of changing behavior and mindset. This approach recognizes that the risk factors driving criminal conduct can be addressed and overcome. Community restraint introduces alternative punishments designed to increase surveillance and control over offenders living in the community. Programs such as intensive supervision, electronic monitoring, and house arrest are regarded as semi-incapacitation techniques that have been shown to reduce offense rates within communities (Shaw & United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2010).
Juveniles and adults alike may attend boot camps or wilderness programs that emphasize structure, discipline, and challenge, focusing on physical and mental challenges alongside disciplinary measures. Throughout such programs, participants are given the opportunity to reflect on past behavior and commit to a different path, with the knowledge that reoffending could result in imprisonment. The technique that combines rehabilitation and restraint merges boot camp programs with rehabilitation elements, including drug testing for those with substance abuse issues and mandatory counseling classes (Shaw & United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2010).
Conclusion
Law enforcement and community prevention methods are geared toward early prevention measures, whereas courts and corrections focus on total elimination or the prevention of reoccurrence in the future. Therefore, the most effective approach is community prevention because it incorporates members of the public directly in crime prevention efforts. By working with community members, law enforcement agencies stand a better chance of reducing crime rates, as they gain first-hand information about events taking place at the ground level. This collaborative model represents the most inclusive and responsive framework for addressing the growing challenge of crime in the United States.
References
Ad Hoc Police Practices Review Commission. (2015). Final report. Retrieved from
Braga, A. A., & Weisburd, D. (2010). Policing problem places: Crime hot spots and effective prevention. Oxford University Press.
Bureau of Justice Assistance. (2014). Crime prevention. Office of Justice Programs.
Shaw, M., & United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. (2010). Handbook on the crime prevention guidelines: Making them work. United Nations.
Schneider, S. (2014). Crime prevention: Theory and practice (2nd ed.). CRC Press.
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