Activity Space
Michael Pace
University of Cincinnati
Theory and Practice of Crime Prevention
CJ 7070
Dr. Pamela Wilcox
October 21, 2015
Introduction
Crime events have the propensity of occurring in our daily routine activities. In order for a crime event to occur there must be three elements: a motivated offender, a potential target or victim, and lack of guardianship (Wilcox, 2015). Evaluating my own activity space, I was able to determine my nodes and paths. By analyzing my nodes and space, I was able to establish a hot spot, which created a place where criminal activity was prevalent. Using the Routine Activity Theory and Offender Search Theory I was able to understand crime is prevalent in this area not only because of the motivated offender but also because of the lack of guardianship, and pro-criminal social and environmental factors, which contribute to a continuous encouragement of criminal activity.
My Activity Space
I live in a small coastal town called Toledo, Oregon. The town has about 3,500 people and is located approximately four miles east of Newport, Oregon. I live in a single story wood built home nestled in a remote section of a neighborhood. The places I frequent on a regular basis in my community is my work (Toledo Police Department; Toledo Oregon), my wife’s work (Fred Meyers; Newport Oregon), and my kids school (Newport High School). Schneider (2015) classifies the places where anyone frequents on a regular basis as a node.
I will
Chicago is a major city with a huge amount of crime and this paper will address crime reduction and prevention in this particular city. It will also address other issues such as; assisting victims, preventing crime, and achieving effective justice. This paper will address the effect that criminological theories and research have had on contemporary and historical crime control policies in Chicago. It will include theoretical rationale for the recommendations that are suggested. Chicago needs more help in these areas because of the amount of crime they are seeing.
Routine activity theory states that for a crime to be committed, three important factors need to be present including: a motivated offender, an accessible target, and the absence of a capable guardian against a violation. Marcus Felson and Lawrence E. Cohen introduced the routine activity theory in 1979, where they believed that an individual who has these three characteristics gives them a greater possibility of committing a crime. Moreover, situational crime prevention is known as strategies of ways for preventing or reducing the opportunities for criminals to commit crimes that derive from the routines of an individual’s everyday life. Ronald V. Clarke introduced situational crime prevention theory in 1983, where he believed that removing the situation instead of removing the criminal could prevent crime. In this paper, I will be discussing what routine activity/situational crime prevention theory is, and apply two peer-reviewed articles from Google Scholar that test the routine activity/situational crime prevention theory by discussing what the authors are trying to figure out and discuss their findings, and lastly, tie the routine activity/situational crime prevention theory articles to our textbook in hopes to fully understand in depth what the theory encompasses.
Situational and social approaches to crime prevention are both proactive where they anticipate and prevent crime but are different in the way on how crime is prevented, each having their own strength and weaknesses. In this essay, I will briefly talk about what is crime prevention and how situational and social approaches are derived, followed by providing a critical comparison of situational and social approaches by first explaining what is situational and social approaches to crime prevention, the differences between the two approaches, their strength and weaknesses and lastly, to show understanding that besides situational and social approach, there are other approaches to crime prevention.
There is the crime pattern theory that explains how individual’s routine activities affect their knowledge of criminal activities and the above leads to spatial concentrations of crimes in some places. Individual developmental maps determine their regular activities and spaces that are represented as topological features. The routine operations act as nodes or sites where people spend time most of time and criminals will move there depending on the level of security anticipated. The offenders will decide where to attack depending on how well they understand the routine activities of their clients (Carlo, and Marie-Noële, 15). On that note, it is not possible for criminals to just attack a place without evaluating the dynamics of the
Summary: This chapter discusses the seven secondary defenses applied to crime after detection. These seven defenses can be split into two categories: discourage and oppose. The four ways which potential victims discourage their attackers: movement away from adversary, communicate ability to escape, distraction, feigns, and startles, and symbiotic protection. The three methods for quick opposition upon attack are chemical and weapon defense, sudden weaponry, and emergency social defense.
Deterrence theory of crime is a method in which punishment is used to dissuade people from committing crimes. There are two types of deterrence: general and specific. General deterrence is punishment to an individual to stop the society as a whole from committing crimes. In other word, it is using the punishment as an example to “scare” society from precipitating in criminal acts. Under general deterrence, publicity is a major part of deterrence. Crime and their punishments being showing in the media or being told person to person can be used to deter crime. Specific deterrence is punishment to the individual to stop that individual from committing other crimes in the future. This type of deterrence is used to teach the individual a
This theory proposes that crime occurs when people’s daily behavior allows for opportunities for crime by bringing inadequately protected targets into the presence of motivated offenders. The theory relies on a motivated offender, a suitable target, and an absence of guardianship (Conklin, 2013, p. 209). Possible motivations could be law neutralization such as denial of the victim, status from peers, lack of money for the property, and the rewards outweigh the risks (Conklin, 2013, p. 209). Thieves consider suitable targets based upon the form and value of the property to be stolen, the vulnerability of the target, and the likelihood of victim resistance (Conklin, 2013, p. 213). Guardianship is measured by how well people protect themselves and their property from
Crime displacement and diffusion is a major concern in the United States. Crime neither seem to be increasing nor decrease throughout the years. Displacement brings more consequences and can occur when a harm is produced by displacement crime before the intervention. There are three theories that help explain why crime are committed, who are targeted and how to prevent from being a potential target. Being aware of your surroundings is extremely important. Analyzing offenders, victims and location can give ideas as to why crimes occurs. Giving displacement and diffusion central attention should be the center to problem solving in criminal activities.
The theory that changed the way I look at things is the Crime Control Theory. Crime control model, with higher reliance on the investigatory and prosecutorial officers in the society, argues the importance of repression of crime. It thinks that a free and safe society should be based on the maximum reduction of crime perpetration. As such, crime control theory argues that criminal justice should concentrate on the protection of victim's rights rather than the defendant's rights and police powers should be reasonably extended so that the law enforcement could protect the law-abiding members of the citizens to its fullest extent, and the punishment should be swift and certain to discourage the future offenses and will-be offenders. In contrast to the due process model, crime control model assumes a suspect to be guilty until the fact-finding process suggests him or her to be innocent and the objective of discovering the truth rather than protecting the innocence or liberty of citizens are highly valued.
In order for crime to arise according to routine activities theory, there are three necessary components: motivated offenders, suitable targets and the absence of capable guardians. Motivated offenders are simply those who possess the drive to commit a crime. Suitable targets are those items or victims who possess enough attractiveness to a motivated offender to incite crime. Capable guardians are those whose company can protect suitable targets (Cohen & Felson, 1979, p. 588-608). In the overlap where there is a motivated offender, suitable target, and absence of capable guardians, criminal activity will likely conspire (Walsh & Jorgensen, 2018, p. 87-88).
According to the Australian Government of Criminology (2017), Crime prevention is ‘an effective approach to reducing crime. It is internationally recognised as an important component of a national approach to building viable communities.’ This essay will examine the case of the kings Cross shooting that occurred in 2012, involving the Indigenous community, Sydney police and Society. it will cover the importance of Crime prevention and the strategies in which are ideal to maintain the safety and security of the community and the offender partaking in the crime. This essay will focus broadly on the perspective of Social Crime Prevention, and the importance it obtains to prevent crime from occurring.
There are many theories that attempt to explain the cause of criminal events. One such theory is routine activity theory developed by Lawrence Cohen and Marcus Felson in 1979. This theory was meant to fill the gaps in existing models that failed to adequately address rising crime rates during the 1960 's (Browning et al., 2000). Cohen and Felson suggested that crime should be thought of as an event that occurs at a specific location and time and involves specific people and/or objects (Felson,
The focus of this paper will be based upon different crime prevention strategies implemented by members of the communities, local and government authorities.
The hypothesis claims that “changes in routine activity patterns can influence crime rates by affecting the convergence in space and time of the three minimal elements of direct-contact predatory violations” and that “the absence of any one of these elements [motivated offenders, suitable targets, and the absence of suitable guardians against a violation] is sufficient to prevent the successful completion of a direct-contact predatory crime.” (1) The authors claim that controls for routine activities, therefore, are essential to maintaining order and keeping the crime rate down. They also note that and understanding of temporal and spatial relationships are key to understanding the changing crime rates. Illegal acts are events that occur in space and time and involve specific persons and/or objects. The spatio-temporal organization of everyday activities is what allows criminals to turn their criminal ideas into reality. Dispersion of activities away from the household has led to a change in the spatio-temporal relationship that increases the opportunity for crime, which in turn increases the crime rate itself.
This assignment is about how realism define crime,it causes and how these crime could be prevented.There are numerous crime theories example labelling theory,life course theory,anomie theory an so forth.All of the above mentioned theories have different views in the definition of crime,it causes and prevention.This essay will talk about realism theory in particular on how they do define crime.its causes and prevention.There are two types of realism theories and these are left and right realism but for the purpose of this assignment left realism will be the key area that will be discussed on how property crime like shoplifting its causes and how it could be prevented.