Crime Prevention and Community Safety: New Directions. Edited by Gordon Hughes, Eugene McLaughlin...
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Book reviews Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 16: 195–201 (2006) DOI: 10.1002/cbm 200 Roger Kennington Sexual Behaviour Unit Newcastle Upon Tyne Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/cbm.21 Crime Prevention and Community Safety: New Directions Edited by Gordon Hughes, Eugene McLaughlin and John Muncie. Sage Publications, London EC2A 4PU, March 2002, 368 pp. Hardback US$115.00, ISBN 0-76197408-3. Paperback US$46.95, ISBN 0-76197409-1 The emergence of ‘community safety’ as a concept for developing community based approaches to tackling and reducing crime and disorder in the UK is now more than 15 years old. In its early stages it was a mix of eclectic and ill-defined crime prevention projects; often prompted by good intentions rather than a sys- tematic analysis of crime, the causes of crime and ‘good practice’ solutions. With the introduction of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, tackling crime and disorder and making the community a safer place became the joint statutory duty of the police and local authorities. Additionally, the Act has given a reified political form to crime and disorder. The duty was overseen by the Home Office who through performance management, a web site knowledge base and with the help of various sections of its own organisation, such as the Respect Task Force, and support from outside bodies such as the Audit Commission, have evolved good practice principles and social intervention imperatives. These have slowly moved us away from the ‘home brew’ of locally based crime prevention activities to something at once inspired by political and targeted crime and disorder reduction. Crime Prevention and Community Safety: New Directions, provides a route map of these developments and an assessment of the impact on crime and justice; providing the foundations of ‘a critique of current policy’ as well as opening up the field of study to new approaches which see community safety as more than simple solutions to everyday manifestations of crime. The book analyses the subject through 16 readable, if a little jargon-filled, essays which illustrate many of the key factors that have come to make up com- munity safety. Importantly, illustrating the significance of the coalescence of this formally organized social action with penal policy. In the first part it pins down the subject from its early origins in the mid-1970’s and gives clear illustrations of the significance of its developments in both driving crime reduction and the crime prevention agenda and mobilizing the third estate for its own ends. Its second part places the legislation as a road sign for the reorientation of the State toward a new social contract of defined rights and responsibilities. Its third part
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Transcript of Crime Prevention and Community Safety: New Directions. Edited by Gordon Hughes, Eugene McLaughlin...
Book reviews
Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 16: 195–201 (2006)DOI: 10.1002/cbm
A
200
Roger KenningtonSexual Behaviour UnitNewcastle Upon TynePublished online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/cbm.21
Crime Prevention and Community Safety: New Directions
Edited by Gordon Hughes, Eugene McLaughlin and John Muncie. Sage Publications, London EC2A 4PU, March 2002, 368 pp. Hardback US$115.00, ISBN 0-76197408-3. Paperback US$46.95, ISBN 0-76197409-1
The emergence of ‘community safety’ as a concept for developing community based approaches to tackling and reducing crime and disorder in the UK is now more than 15 years old. In its early stages it was a mix of eclectic and ill-defined crime prevention projects; often prompted by good intentions rather than a sys-tematic analysis of crime, the causes of crime and ‘good practice’ solutions.
With the introduction of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, tackling crime and disorder and making the community a safer place became the joint statutory duty of the police and local authorities. Additionally, the Act has given a reified political form to crime and disorder. The duty was overseen by the Home Office who through performance management, a web site knowledge base and with the help of various sections of its own organisation, such as the Respect Task Force, and support from outside bodies such as the Audit Commission, have evolved good practice principles and social intervention imperatives. These have slowly moved us away from the ‘home brew’ of locally based crime prevention activities to something at once inspired by political and targeted crime and disorder reduction.
Crime Prevention and Community Safety: New Directions, provides a route map of these developments and an assessment of the impact on crime and justice; providing the foundations of ‘a critique of current policy’ as well as opening up the field of study to new approaches which see community safety as more than simple solutions to everyday manifestations of crime.
The book analyses the subject through 16 readable, if a little jargon-filled, essays which illustrate many of the key factors that have come to make up com-munity safety. Importantly, illustrating the significance of the coalescence of this formally organized social action with penal policy. In the first part it pins down the subject from its early origins in the mid-1970’s and gives clear illustrations of the significance of its developments in both driving crime reduction and the crime prevention agenda and mobilizing the third estate for its own ends. Its second part places the legislation as a road sign for the reorientation of the State toward a new social contract of defined rights and responsibilities. Its third part
Book reviews
Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 16: 195–201 (2006)DOI: 10.1002/cbm
A
201
considers the priority given to crime prevention ‘as the master pattern of social control’ and the consequent agenda of crime and disorder control that this pro-motes for modern social policy.
This book succeeds in showing the reader how the topic is of its time with close links to the new managerial, best practice methodologies of public service delivery and the ‘third way’. It also succeeds in showing how this macro political approach easily looses sight of the low level realities of everyday life – what socially and psychologically motivates the individual to commit crime and fails to comprehend the real consequences of crime for individuals; whether victim or perpetrator.
Martin DavisHead of Safer Communities ServicesLondon Borough of Hackney, UKPublished online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/cbm.11
