Crime Prevention Strategies

Why This Matters

Crime prevention isn't just about catching criminals—it's about understanding why crime happens and how we can design systems, communities, and interventions that stop it before it starts. You're being tested on your ability to distinguish between strategies that target individuals, environments, and social structures, and to explain how each approach reflects different theories of criminal behavior and human development.

The strategies in this guide fall into distinct categories: some focus on making crime physically harder to commit, others address the developmental and social factors that push people toward criminality, and still others emphasize healing and community engagement. Don't just memorize the names—know what theoretical framework each strategy represents, whether it's situational prevention, developmental intervention, or restorative approaches. Understanding these distinctions will help you tackle comparison questions and FRQs with confidence.

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Environmental and Situational Approaches

These strategies operate on a simple premise: crime is partly a function of opportunity. By manipulating the physical environment and immediate circumstances, we can make criminal acts harder, riskier, or less rewarding—without changing the offender at all.

Situational Crime Prevention

• Reduces opportunity for crime—focuses on altering the immediate environment rather than changing offender motivation
• Three core tactics: increasing visibility, controlling access points, and enhancing security measures to raise the perceived risk
• Rooted in rational choice theory—assumes potential offenders weigh costs and benefits before acting

Environmental Design (CPTED)

• Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design—a systematic approach to planning physical spaces that discourage criminal behavior
• Three key principles: natural surveillance (clear sightlines), territorial reinforcement (clear ownership cues), and access control (limiting entry points)
• Requires community buy-in—effective CPTED involves residents in both design decisions and ongoing maintenance of public spaces

Target Hardening

• Physical security upgrades—locks, alarms, reinforced doors, and barriers that protect specific targets from victimization
• Increases effort and risk for offenders—makes criminal acts more difficult and time-consuming to execute
• Most effective for property crime—particularly useful for protecting businesses, vehicles, and residences in high-crime areas

Surveillance and Guardianship

• Formal and informal monitoring—combines technology (CCTV systems) with human presence (neighborhood watch, police patrols)
• Based on routine activities theory—crime requires a motivated offender, suitable target, and absence of capable guardians
• Creates deterrent effect—the perception of being watched reduces criminal opportunity even when actual monitoring is limited

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Developmental and Early Intervention Approaches

These strategies recognize that criminal behavior often has roots in childhood and adolescence. By identifying risk factors early and providing support during critical developmental windows, we can prevent criminality from ever taking hold.

Developmental Crime Prevention

• Targets risk factors at key life stages—addresses issues like poor parenting, school failure, and peer influence during childhood and adolescence
• Long-term investment strategy—focuses on building protective factors rather than responding to crime after it occurs
• Evidence-based programs—includes interventions like nurse home visits, preschool enrichment, and social skills training

Early Intervention Programs

• Identifies at-risk individuals proactively—uses screening tools to find children and families who need support before problems escalate
• Multi-system approach—combines education support, mental health services, and family strengthening programs
• Breaks intergenerational cycles—aims to prevent crime by addressing adverse childhood experiences that predict later offending

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Social and Community-Based Approaches

These strategies address the structural and relational factors that drive crime. Rather than focusing on individual offenders or physical environments, they strengthen communities and tackle root causes like poverty, inequality, and social disconnection.

Community-Based Prevention

• Builds collective efficacy—empowers residents to work together with law enforcement and social services on shared safety goals
• Strengthens informal social control—communities with high trust and cohesion naturally discourage deviant behavior among members
• Partnership model—success depends on genuine collaboration, not just police telling communities what to do

Social Crime Prevention

• Addresses root causes—targets poverty, unemployment, lack of education, and inadequate social services that correlate with crime rates
• Upstream intervention—focuses on improving quality of life broadly rather than responding to criminal incidents
• Enhances protective factors—strong schools, job opportunities, and support networks reduce the pull toward criminal behavior

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Justice System and Policing Approaches

These strategies work within or alongside the criminal justice system to prevent crime through smarter enforcement, accountability, and healing. They represent alternatives to purely punitive responses.

Problem-Oriented Policing

• Data-driven and targeted—uses crime analysis to identify specific problems (hot spots, repeat offenders, vulnerable locations) rather than just responding to calls
• SARA model: Scanning, Analysis, Response, Assessment—a systematic framework for diagnosing and addressing crime patterns
• Collaborative approach—involves community members and other agencies in developing tailored solutions to local problems

Restorative Justice

• Repairs harm rather than just punishing—brings victims, offenders, and community members together through dialogue and reconciliation processes
• Reduces recidivism—offenders who participate in restorative processes show lower reoffending rates than those processed through traditional courts
• Victim-centered—gives victims voice and agency in determining how harm should be addressed, unlike conventional prosecution

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Quick Reference Table

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Self-Check Questions

1. Which two strategies both focus on the physical environment but operate at different scales—one protecting specific targets and one shaping broader spatial design?

2. A city wants to reduce youth crime by addressing poverty, improving schools, and creating job programs. Which strategy category does this represent, and how does it differ from developmental crime prevention?

3. Compare and contrast problem-oriented policing with traditional reactive policing. What theoretical shift does the problem-oriented approach represent?

4. An FRQ describes a neighborhood with high crime rates and asks you to recommend a strategy that builds trust between residents and reduces crime through social cohesion. Which approach should you choose, and what key term should you define?

5. How do restorative justice and traditional criminal prosecution differ in their treatment of victims, and what evidence supports restorative justice as a crime prevention strategy?