Crime Prevention Approaches and Models

Crime Prevention Approaches and Models

• Crime prevention: all measures taken by government policy and private initiative to prevent crime, excluding the criminal justice system
• Crime prevention models are based on specific theories or factors of crime that may have played a part in the commission of crime or victimization
• USA established the National Crime Prevention Institute in 1971, which was taken over by the federal government in 1986 to involve communities in crime prevention
• England:
  • Local crime prevention panels existed from 1966
  • 1975: Home Office Committee on Crime Prevention
  • 1983: establishment of the Home Office Crime Prevention Centre and the Research and Planning Unit
• France: prevention councils have been operating at local, regional, and national levels since 1983
• Sweden and Denmark: national crime prevention councils since the late 1970s
• South Africa: National Crime Prevention Policy (1996) advocates an integrated, multidimensional crime prevention model for interdepartmental cooperation at central, regional, and local authority levels
  • Four pillars:
    • Reduction of crime through effective environmental planning and design
    • Enhancement of community values and campaigns to educate the community

Employee Theft

• Common characteristics: few employees who steal from employers have a long-term commitment to their employers or find themselves in dire financial straits at the time of the offence
• Motives for employee theft:
  • Debt
  • Opportunities that staff are exposed to in the course of daily duties
  • Workers who are unhappy with their working environment/circumstances have a higher tendency to offend and rationalize the offence, lowering guilt levels
  • Feelings of unfair treatment were among the strongest predictors of employee theft
  • Hollinger and Clark's survey: revenge for (perceived) injustices, inadequate remuneration, self-enrichment, and assistance to others
  • Offenders themselves give reasons such as awareness of other employees stealing, personal financial difficulty, remoteness of being caught, and belief that if caught they will not be prosecuted/punished

Computer Crime Prevention

• Prevention of computer crime: combine physical security with operations security to become less predictable
• Identifying risks/risk analysis: identifying threats to a system, vulnerabilities of that system, and measures to protect the system
• Physical security: protect building, computer room, and equipment
• Personnel security: includes prevention of employee theft and workplace violence through background checks and monitoring
• Computer security: protection of mail, fax, telephone, and voicemail communications, and data transmitted through computer networks
• Operations security: includes two major aspects of computer security:
  • Ways to increase awareness among potential victims of possible computer crimes
  • Ways to keep computer criminals from committing a computer crime

Burglary (Housebreaking)

• Key concept: unlawful access to a structure in order to commit theft
• Service Delivery Improvement Process (SDIP) aims to improve service at all levels of the organisation
• Human resource management and legal services:
  • Career management: renders people-centred human resource service to all personnel
  • Personnel services: manages all personnel-related matters in support of the operational priorities of SAPS
  • Training: duties include all training, such as optimisation of crime statistics, detective training, crime intelligence, crime prevention, operational response, and human resource development
  • Legal services: duties include implementation of government legislation and enforcement of government policy
• Logistical, evaluation, security, and protection services:
  • Security and protection services: functions include rendering strict protection services and static guard duties