Prevention
Any organizational activity aimed at keeping unlawful behavior from occurring or keeping such behavior to a minimum and avoiding intervention
Prevention in general Primary, secondary, tertiary
Difficulty of evaluating prevention Correlational If nothing happens, was it because of
prevention. Tiger prevention Secular drift Resistance of politicians, public, etc.
Theories
Deterrence Biological explanations (genetics, health
care, diet) Psychological characteristics:
aggression, hyperactivity, impulsivity, intelligence, moral development
Theories
Sociological Differential association, social/self
control Ecological Strain, opportunity, middle class
measuring rod Economics, relative deprivation
Crime prevention study
University of Maryland Rated studies on such aspects as Control of other variables Statistical power Research design: Correlations, temporal sequence,
comparisons, random assignment and comparisons
Study
Evaluation of history, chance factors, selection bias
Evaluated studies and examined results What works, what doesn’t work, what’s
promising
What doesn’t work
Gun buyback programs Community mobilization in high crime
inner city areas Home visits by police to couples after
domestic violence Individual and peer counseling of
students
What doesn’t work
DARE Summer jobs for at-risk youths School-based leisure time enrichment
programs Short term nonresidential training
programs
What doesn’t work
Neighborhood watch, esp. in high crime areas where voluntary participation needed
Arrests of juveniles for minor offenses (backfires)
Arrests of unemployed suspects for domestic assault
What doesn’t work
Increased raids on drug markets Storefront police officers Correctional boot camps Scared Straight Shock sentences Home detention and EM for low-risk
offenders
What doesn’t work
ISP General counseling of offenders Residential programs for juvenile
offenders in rural settings (outward bound, etc)
What works
Frequent home visits to infants Preschool and weekly home visits by
teachers to children under 5 Family therapy and parent training
about delinquent and at-risk preadolescents
What works
Clarifying and communicating norms about behavior through rules and schoolwide initiatives (such as antibullying campaigns) in schools
Life Skills Training programs, teaching such skills to youths as stress management, problem-solving, self-control
What works
Training in thinking skills to high-risk youths
Ex-offender job training for old males Nuisance abatement (threatening civil
action against landlords for not addressing drug dealing and crime on premises)
What works
Extra police patrols in high crime hot spots
Repeat offender units Arresting domestic abusers if they are
employed Incarceration of repeat offenders who
will continue to commit crimes
What works
Rehabilitation programs for offenders using treatments appropriate to their risk factors
Therapeutic community programs in prisons
What’s promising
Gang offender monitoring Big Brothers/Big Sisters of America Community based afterschool
recreation programs Battered women’s shelters seems to
work if the women take further steps School within schools
What’s promising
Job Corps Prison-based vocational education
programs in the federal prisons Dispersing inner-city public housing
residents to scattered suburban public housing (reduced crime, high school dropout and parental unemployment
What’s promising: deterrence
2nd clerk in already robbed convenience stores
Redesigning layout of retail stores to reduce shoplifting
Training and management of bar staff reduces tavern violence and accidents
Metal detectors in schools reduce weapon carrying (although not assaults)
What’s promising
Airport metal detectors Sky marshals Street closures, barricades and
rerouting Target hardening Problem-solving analysis addressed to
the specific crime situation
What’s promising
Arrests for carrying unauthorized concealed weapons
Community policing reduces community perceptions of crime severity
Polite Field interrogations of suspicious persons
Higher numbers of police officers (some cities)
What’s promising
Drug courts Drug treatment in jails followed by urine
testing in the community Intensive supervision and aftercare of
minor juvenile offenses (runaways, truants) reduced future offending for first time offenders (but not multiple)
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