April/avril
2005
Volume 47, no. 2
Crime
Prevention: Canadian and International Perspectives / La prévention
du crime : perspectives canadiennes et internationales
Edited by
/ Sous la direction de Ross Hastings, Lucie Léonard, Julian
Roberts, and/et Daniel Sansfaçon
Introduction: Perspectives
on Crime Prevention: Issues and Challenges
Ross Hastings
Perspectives sur la prévention
du crime : questions et enjeux
Ross Hastings
Part
I: Canadian Perspectives / Perspectives canadiennes
Building Safer
Communities: Lessons Learned from Canada's National Strategy
Lucie Léonard, Giselle Rosario, Carolyn Scott, and Jessica
Bressan
The Need for
Comprehensive Crime Prevention Planning: The Case of Motor Vehicle
Theft
Rick Linden and Renuka Chaturvedi
Situational
Crime Prevention as a Key Component in Embedded Crime Prevention
Patricia L. Brantingham, Paul J. Brantingham, and Wendy Taylor
Engendering
Crime Prevention: International Developments and the Canadian Experience
Margaret Shaw and Caroline Andrew
Le partenariat
dans la prevention du crime en milieu urbain: les défis d'une
culture à consolider
Sophie Paquin
Evidence-Based
Crime Prevention: Conclusions and Directions for a Safer Society
Brandon C. Welsh and David P. Farrington
Part
II: International Perspectives / Perspectives internationales
A Short History
of Crime Prevention in Australia
Peter Homel
The New Local
Governance of Community Safety in England and Wales
Tim Hope
Recent Developments
in Crime Prevention and Safety Policies in Finland
Kauko Aromaa and Jukka-Pekka Takala
Prevention
and Security: A New Governance Model for France through a Contract-Based
Territorial Approach
Sebastian Roché
Crime and Crime
Prevention in South Africa: 10 Years After
Anton du Plessis and Antoinette Louw
American Crime
Prevention: Trends and New Frontiers
Amie M. Schuck
De la prévention
et de la sécurité : réflexions sur la gouvernance
durable
de la sécurité des collectivités
Daniel Sansfaçon
Abstracts
/ Résumés
Building
Safer Communities: Lessons Learned from Canada's National Strategy
Lucie Léonard, Giselle Rosario, Carolyn Scott, and Jessica
Bressan
The purpose of this article
is to discuss emerging trends in the development and implementation
of locally based action directed at crime prevention and community
safety in Canada. The discussion centres on the results gleaned from
the research and evaluation of specific community-based projects that
have been supported under the National Crime Prevention Strategy.
Results from some of the projects indicate reductions in offending,
improved school attendance and academic achievement, decreased levels
of violence and aggression, increased pro-social behaviours, and improved
community safety. Despite the considerable progress, many challenges
remain in the development of individual and community-based safety
initiatives.
The Need
for Comprehensive Crime Prevention Planning: The Case of Motor Vehicle
Theft
Rick Linden and Renuka Chaturvedi
Most crime prevention programs
are poorly planned and implemented, and therefore do little or nothing
to prevent crime. Programs are typically fragmented, with little communication
among the groups who share a common interest in reducing crime. Most
programs operate in isolation rather than being linked to a broader
community-wide prevention strategy. Communities that have been able
to make meaningful reductions in crime rates have done so by taking
a comprehensive approach to crime prevention in which they implement
an integrated series of programs that coordinate the efforts of a
broad range of partners and participants. To be comprehensive and
effective, crime prevention programs must analyse the crime problems
in their community context, involve a broad group of people and organizations,
consider a diverse range of prevention strategies, carefully implement
the programs most suited to a particular community, and assess the
results. This article illustrates how this process can be applied
to the prevention of motor vehicle theft.
Situational
Crime Prevention as a Key Component in Embedded Crime Prevention
Patricia L. Brantingham, Paul J. Brantingham, and Wendy Taylor
This article provides information
about the evolving field of situational crime prevention and proposes
that the situational perspective be used to understand recent crime
prevention approaches in Canada. The article also explores how the
articulated description of situational crime prevention can be used
to develop ways of measuring the impact of specific crime prevention
programs and to find ways to embed the crime prevention process into
general governance.
Engendering
Crime Prevention: International Developments and the Canadian Experience
Margaret Shaw and Caroline Andrew
This article discusses the
absence of gender in crime prevention in Canada and internationally.
It outlines the development of parallel streams of work on violence
against women and women’s safety and argues that there is a need
to integrate them into a concerted gendered approach, particularly
at the level of municipalities. It draws on developing work on women’s
safety, gender, and the role of women in decision making in local
government. The first part of the article is based on a review of
international policy and practice on women’s safety; it discusses
recent trends and developments, as well as some of the problems and
questions raised. These relate to the apparently separate worlds of
expertise and activity that have grown up around violence against
women and women’s safety, the emergence of the concept of gender,
and the isolation of these areas of work from mainstream crime prevention.
The second part of the article evaluates Canadian performance in engendering
crime prevention and makes some recommendations for embedding and
sustaining engendered practice, particularly at the local level.
Le partenariat
dans la prevention du crime en milieu urbain: les défis d'une
culture à consolider
Sophie Paquin
Le partenariat pour la prévention
du crime constitue une approche de plus en plus populaire dans la
coproduction de la sécurité des collectivités.
Toutefois, une certaine confusion et un usage inadéquat existent
avec le terme de partenariat. Afin de clarifier ce concept, cette
étude définit le partenariat et ce qui le distingue
des autres modes d’actions collectives. Une enquête a été
menée auprès des principaux spécialistes de la
prévention du crime au Québec pour connaître leurs
perceptions et expériences de la démarche partenariale.
L’analyse des résultats de l’enquête souligne
que le partenariat multidisciplinaire permet un accès bonifié
aux ressources et aux clientèles, favorise le réseautage
des partenaires, améliore les résultats des actions
et procure un diagnostic de sécurité plus complet. Certaines
conditions faciliteraient aussi l’élaboration et le fonctionnement
du partenariat. Par contre, le peu de temps habituellement alloué
à la consolidation de la démarche partenariale, les
changements dans les structures, les cultures organisationnelles difficiles
à concilier et la précarité financière
des organismes sont des facteurs qui peuvent nuire au partenariat.
Dans le contexte sociopolitique actuel, les partenariats en prévention
du crime vont se multiplier malgré des conditions de base importantes
à satisfaire. Des enjeux majeurs demeurent et vont influencer
les débats sur les nouveaux partenariats, particulièrement
le manque d’imputabilité des regroupements partenariaux
et l’essoufflement des organisations qui, dans un contexte de
précarité, ne cessent d’être sollicitées
pour de nouveaux partenariats. Le partenariat amène donc une
série de défis pour l’ensemble des acteurs en prévention
du crime.
Evidence-Based
Crime Prevention: Conclusions and Directions for a Safer Society
Brandon C. Welsh and David P. Farrington
In an evidence-based society,
government crime prevention policy and local practice would be based
on interventions with demonstrated effectiveness in preventing crime
– using what works best. Systematic reviews are the most comprehensive
method of assessing the effectiveness of crime prevention measures
and, in an evidence-based society, they would be the source that governments
would turn to for help in the development of policy. This article
summarizes the main findings of a project of the Campbell Collaboration
Crime and Justice Group to advance knowledge on what works to prevent
crime for a wide range of interventions, organized around four important
domains: at-risk children, offenders, victims, and high-crime places.
The full conclusions are published in the forthcoming book, Preventing
Crime: What Works for Children, Offenders, Victims, and Places. The
good news from this first wave of reviews is that most of the interventions
are effective in preventing crime and, in many cases, produce sizeable
effects. This includes social-skills training for children, cognitive–behavioural
therapy and incarceration-based drug treatment for offenders, face-to-face
restorative justice conferences involving victims and offenders, prevention
of repeat residential burglary victimization, hot spots policing,
closed-circuit television surveillance, and improved street lighting.
Acting on the evidence from these systematic reviews could contribute
to a safer society, both now and in the long run. Alongside the Campbell
Collaboration effort to prepare and maintain systematic reviews for
use by policy makers, practitioners, and the general public, a program
of research into new crime prevention and intervention experiments
needs to be initiated.
A Short
History of Crime Prevention in Australia
Peter Homel
Crime prevention work in Australia
is notable for significant innovation and achievement in a number
of important areas. However, the ability to consolidate these successes
has been hampered by a number of structural factors, including continuing
fragmentation between the state/territory level and the national bodies;
a lack of strong national leadership and a shared vision for crime
prevention goals; frequent changes in direction and strategic priorities
across all levels of government; short-term arrangements that shift
from “project” to “program” level; a lack of cohesion
and coordination between key agencies (particularly police); and the
absence of an adequate evidence base to support the dominant strategic
approach – the community-based crime prevention model. This article
discusses each of these issues from the perspective of managing crime
prevention work at the various levels of Australian government and
offers some thoughts on possible future directions and methods for
overcoming existing shortcomings. Particular attention is paid to
the impact of the increasing commitment to the use of “whole
of government” models for developing and implementing crime prevention
work, the emergence of the “urban renewal” model as a framework
for broadening and strengthening the community-based crime prevention
approach, the changing role of police in crime prevention, and the
importance of building adequate evidence bases to support crime prevention
practice.
The New
Local Governance of Community Safety in England and Wales
Tim Hope
This article provides an overview
and assessment, since 1997, of the “New Labour” government’s
reforms and policies of crime prevention and community safety in England
and Wales. It reviews developments since the Crime and Disorder Act,
1998, and assesses the impact of the government’s Crime Reduction
Strategy and its campaign against antisocial behaviour. The argument
is that, in its zeal to reduce crime through its “modernization”
agenda, applied to public service delivery, and the consequent emphasis
on performance in the reduction of crime, the government is neglecting
the institution-building task of constituting a new security governance
in the community. This neglect may have led to a rise in insecurity
in society, fostered by a heightened anxiety about disorder. This
trend seems set to continue with the government’s approach to
police reform. And although an emergent agenda of “civil renewal”
holds out some promise for policies that recognize the role of citizens
in the co-production of community safety, there are also dangers of
reinforcing the insecurity of the disadvantaged, who have limited
access to the social capital required for participation.
Recent Developments
in Crime Prevention and Safety Policies in Finland
Kauko Aromaa and Jukka-Pekka Takala
Finland’s National Council
for Crime Prevention (NCCP) was established in 1989. A national crime
prevention program was adopted by the government in 1999. The program
follows the “Nordic model” and includes a national coordinating
and steering body that provides funding and advice to local crime
prevention committees and projects. The Nordic model of crime prevention
involves a strong affiliation to areas outside the justice system
and strikes a balance between social and situational crime prevention.
A member since 2001 of the European Crime Prevention Network (EUCPN),
the NCCP selects projects to be presented at the EUCPN’s annual
Good Practice Conferences as well as competing for the annual European
Crime Prevention Awards. The overt politicization of crime policy
issues may cause some rethinking. The Nordic model may need to be
complemented by other approaches, such as early intervention, other
methods of social crime prevention, and a growing emphasis on creating
networks, cooperation, and partnerships with many different actors
with a stake in preventing crime.
Prevention
and Security: A New Governance Model for France through a Contract-Based
Territorial Approach
Sebastian Roché
In the traditional organizational
model for public security and crime prevention, the central government
and its agents at the local level play a dominant role. As we analyse
the current situation, it becomes clear that the state’s role
is diminishing while approaches and stakeholders have become more
numerous and diverse (citizens, municipalities, central government,
Europe, business, insurance companies). This observation leads to
the conclusion that the state is losing its monopoly in this field,
that it can no longer impose its “top-down” approach, and
that a new form of security governance using a contract-based territorial
model has now become the norm.
Crime and
Crime Prevention in South Africa: 10 Years After
Anton du Plessis and Antoinette Louw
South Africa’s transition
since 1994 has required an extensive overhaul of its institutions
and laws. The last 10 years have been characterized by a flurry of
new policies and legislation in the criminal justice sector. After
1994, one of the government’s priorities was the National Crime
Prevention Strategy (NCPS). The NCPS recognized the social and developmental
causes of crime, as well as the need to involve a range of government
departments and civil society partnerships. The strategy has, however,
lost momentum as a result of public and political pressure to deliver
decisive, short-term solutions. Since 1999, the government’s
focus has been on tough law enforcement interventions and on passing
new laws aimed at improving criminal justice functioning. This article
argues that South Africa’s criminal justice system has performed
well considering the challenges it has faced since 1994. The task
now is to deal with increasingly negative public perceptions of safety
and renew efforts to prevent crime by tackling the social and developmental
factors that are beyond the scope of the police and courts.
American
Crime Prevention: Trends and New Frontiers
Amie M. Schuck
American crime prevention is
at a crossroads. After decades of successful efforts, the concept
of prevention has been embedded in the American lexicon and prevention
strategies are becoming a part of public policy. Even so, there is
great uncertainty about the form, function, and emphasis of prevention
programs. Historically, prevention efforts have used techniques of
surveillance and incapacitation and focused primarily on guns, gangs,
and drugs. Over the past 10 years, more progressive forms of prevention
have been incorporated into public policy. However, the current conservative
climate, combined with the fear of terrorism and declining sources
of revenue, has precipitated a renewed emphasis on surveillance and
incapacitation. Because the United States does not have a specific
agency responsible for crime prevention, or even a national crime
prevention agenda, much American crime prevention is incident driven.
At present, the themes of information integration systems and prevention
technology, law enforcement partnerships, and targeted interventions
dominate the discourse on American crime prevention. However, it is
unlikely that current crime trends will continue. Despite the impressive
body of evidence accumulated over the last several decades on the
importance of evidence-based crime prevention efforts, there is still
enormous pressure to go back to the old-fashioned logic of deterrence
and punishment.
De la prévention
et de la sécurité : réflexions sur la gouvernance
durable
de la sécurité des collectivités
Daniel Sansfaçon
Les politiques et pratiques
de prévention de la criminalité ont significativement
évolué au cours des quelque vingt dernières années.
Elles se sont diversifiées et se spécialisées
; mais elles se sont surtout répandues dans de nombreux pays
et villes, et l’Organisation des Nations Unies (ONU) a adopté
des lignes directrices pour leur mise en œuvre. Au même
moment, et au-delà du contexte géopolitique global qui
voit les gouvernements mettrent l’accent sur la sécurité
et les mesures de contrôle davantage que sur les mesures préventives,
ces politiques ont très souvent été remises en
question. Les mots clés incantatoires propres au discours préventif,
de même qu’une certaine prétention à formuler
des « recettes » y sont sans doute pour quelque chose.
Néanmoins, à travers les mécanismes du partenariat,
les outils de diagnostic local de sécurité, le recours
à la connaissance et la pratique de l’évaluation,
les politiques de prévention ont fortement contribué
à instaurer une conception différente de la sécurité,
une conception qui nous fait passer du gouvernement de la sécurité
intérieure à la gouvernance de la sécurité
citoyenne. Par tâtonnements et approximations successifs, se
construit en effet un autre rapport à la normativité,
qui ne relève plus uniquement de l’État mais qui
est décentré et fragmenté, permettant ainsi une
implication plus grande de la société civile dans la
production du lien social.
