Crime Prevention Past Paper PDF

History of crime control and prevention ​ Premodern crime control ○​ Retributive punishment; “an eye for an eye” ○​ Formal systems of crime control largely nonexistence ○​ Crime control was local; members of public community largely response for crime control and punishm...

History of crime control and prevention ​ Premodern crime control ○​ Retributive punishment; “an eye for an eye” ○​ Formal systems of crime control largely nonexistence ○​ Crime control was local; members of public community largely response for crime control and punishment, forms of citizen “self-help” evolved over time ○​ Obligatory Policing (1066 AD) in England ​ Male citizens formal obligation to band together in groups and police themselves ○​ “Watch and Ward” systems (1285 AD) ​ Rotated responsibility for keeping watch over town, village, or other area ​ “Hue and cry” ○​ Men rotate watching over town at night, raising alarm if threat indentified ​ “Assize of arms” ○​ All freeman required to have weapons available to assist if needed ​ Constable ○​ Unpaid position to organize “watch and ward” systems ○​ “Vigilante movements” arose on frontiers (United States) ​ Group of men “posse” would organize when an offender needed to be apprehended and punished ​ Early organized approaches ○​ Paid private police forces ​ Parochial police forced hired to protect homes and property of wealthy ​ Often involved private police forces for industries ​ Merchant Police of England (16th century) established to protect wool industry ​ Thames river police established in 1798 by West Indian merchants in response to dockland crime (thefts from ships/warehouses) ○​ Thief takers ​ Professional bounty hunters emerged (Highwayman Act of 1692 england) ○​ Early detectives ​ Bow street runners (1749-1839); private detective who investigate and detect crimes, private but paid by (and attached to) local magistrate ​ Modern policing ○​ Early attempts 17th-18th century; often militarized patrols staffed by ex-soilders ​ Prussian royal police officers 1750, viennese police officers 1753 ○​ Metropolitan Police Act 1829 ​ First professional state-organized police force funded through London taxes ​ Hierarchical command structure; superintendents, inspectors, sergeants. Unlike patrols in Europe, not military (sometimes even unarmed)  ​ Focus was on prevention of crime through systematic patrolling; evolution of watchmen system “old police” to patrol beats “new police” ​ By early 20th century government-organized police forces became norm in large urban centers ​ Juvenile Court ○​ Guided by parens patriae; “father of the country” ○​ Jurisdiction over delinquency, dependency, and status offenses ○​ Premised on idea they could treat juvenile deliquents by attending to cause of delinquency ○​ Preventing crime before it occured; poverty, lack of education, poor parenting among lower classes were seen as major causes of juvenile crime ○​ Courts influenced by positivist criminology; scientific approach to studying crime being caused by identifiable factors ​ Low iq ​ Low self control ​ Poverty ​ Unemployment ​ Lack of education ​ Early crime prevention projects ○​ Chicago Area Project; first documented initiative in the US that measured crime prevention ​ Sociologists Clifford Shaw and Henry Mckay and University of Chicago established “social disorganization” theory ○​ Early community project aimed at preventing crime caused by social disorganization ​ Sought to improve sense of pride and community in social disorganized neighborhoods in Chicago suffering from high deliquency rates and gang activity ​ >20 programs developed for youth; counseling, hobby groups, school activities, recreation ​ Unclear whether it was effective but marks beginning of modern era of crime prevention ○​ Cambridge-Somerville Youth study ​ First delinquency prevention experiment, created by Rich C. Cabot in 1935 (harvard prof of clinical medicine and social ethics, “Friendly mentoring” by adult role models ​ 650 boys (avg age = 10) placed in 325 matched pairs and randomly allocated to experimental or control gorup ​ Experimental group received monthly visits from counselors who acted as positive role models ​ Lasted 1939-1945 ​ Follw-up reveal null effect (1949), iatrogenic effect (1978) ​ Many competing hypothesis for failure ○​ Theory failure = mentoring not effective  ○​ Implementation failure = intervention not well focused ○​ Deviancy training hypothesis = deviant peers bonded during summer camps ​ Without rigorous scientific design these negative intervention effects would not have been discovered ​ Later interviews, treatment group men reported that the program had helped them ​ Federal funding ○​ Funding for delinquency prevention began in 1950 with eisenhowever adin ○​ Early programs based on social structure theories aimed at community-level prevention ○​ NYC-based Mobilization fo Youth (MOBY) ​ Integrated approach to community development, based on Cloward and Olsen (1960) different opportunity theory, funding began in 1961 under Kennedy admin ​ Head Start; National preschool program begun in 1965 under Johnson Admin ​ Presidential commission of 1960s ○​ Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice produced the report “The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society”; The report says, crime cannot be controlled without the interest and participation of schools, businesses, social agencies, private groups, and individual citizens not just police, courts, corrections agencies. ○​ National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence (1969) ​ Established task forces on how best to prevent crime/violence ​ Major conclusion was host of criminogenic risk factors “pulled” toward crime ○​ National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals (1973) ​ Funded with 1.75 million, first formulations of national criminal justice standards and goals for crime reduction and prevention and the State and local level ​ Issues six reports with “best practices” authored by task forces on major topics, building on prior reports ​ National Strategy to Reduce Crime ​ Criminal Justice System ​ Police ​ Courts ​ Corrections ​ Community Crime prevention ​ “Tough on crime” era ○​ Crime began to rise during 1960s and continued dramatically through 1990s ​ Reseach on crime control effort by CJ system generally showed little effect ​ Martinson (1974) report “nothing works” in prison rehabilitation ​ Growing prison population was not accompained by reductions in crime and violence ○​ Overt politicization of crime in the 1980s  ​ Political suicide to be perceived as “soft on crime”, crime prevention became seen as “soft” ○​ Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 ​ Passed under Clinton admin, sponsored by Senator Joe Biden ​ Largest crime bill in history; 10.8b fudning for 100k new state/local police officers, 9.7b for new prisons, 2.6b for FBI/dea, 6.1b for prevention programs ​ Funding for prevention was controversial, created rift between crime control “tough on crime” and crime prevention “soft on crime” ​ Preventing juvenile delinquency through “midnight basketball” ​ Evidence-based crime prevention ○​ Embraces prevention science’s commitment to the use of the most scientifically valid methods to evaluate programs ○​ Seeks to increase influence of research on policy, put systematic research evidence at center stage in the policy-making procss Crime prevention theory ​ Prevention versus Punishment ○​ Some punishment, historically and today, intends to prevent crime ○​ Another view of crime prevention is that it operates outside the CJ system (prevention without punishment) ​ Punishment ○​ Retribution ​ Punishment aims to provide “just deserts” ○​ Deterrence ​ General deterrence: Punishment prevents public from committing crimes ​ Specific Deterrence: Punishment prevents offender from committing future crimes ○​ Incapacitation ​ Punishment aims to prevent crime for duration of incapacition ○​ Rehabilitation ​ Punishment aims to prevent offender fro committing future crimes through treatment ​ Medical model of crime ○​ Crime is a social disease and criminals are victims of various social pathologies (drug addiction, unemployment, inability to self-regulate) ○​ Causes of crime can be “treated” as an illness might be ​ Classifications ○​ Public health model ​ Primary ​ Actions taken to avoid the initial development of the disease or problem (parent training, street lighting, neighborhood watch)  ​ Secondary ​ Focuses on individuals and situations that exhibit early signs of disease (school violence reduction, community policing, drug treatment) ​ Tertiary ​ The disease or problem has already manifested itself (rehabilitation, specific deterrence, incapacitation) ○​ Levels of focus ​ Micro ​ Target individuals, small groups, small areas, or small businesses ​ Meso ​ Looks at larger communities or neighborhoods, or larger groups of individuals or businesses ​ Macro ​ Looks at large communities, society as a whole, or other very large collectives ○​ Theory-driven ​ Developmental crime prevention (DCP) ​ Addresses developmental causes of crime ​ Individual risk-focused prevention ​ Motivated by developmental theories of crime; self-control theory, social learning theory, multiple pathways model, cumulative effects model ​ Major challenges: What risk factors are causes of crime versus mere correlates ​ Community crime prevention (CCP) ​ Addresses community causes of crime ​ Social structural-focused prevention ​ Motivated by sociological theories of crime; social disorganization theory, community disorder theory, strain theory, differential opportunity theory ​ Major challenges: What causes community violence, does change come from without or within ​ Situational crime prevention (SCP) ​ Addresses situational causes of crime ​ Opportunity-focused prevention ​ Motivated by economic theories of crime; rational choice theory, routine activities theory, and crime pattern theory. Focuses on the event not the offender ​ Major challenges: Does not address root causes of crime ​ Criminal justice prevention ​ Police, courts, and corrections also attempt to prevent future crime, but often only after some crime has been committed  Evaluating crime prevention ​ Evaluation is a systematic investigation of some phenomena in order to make a judgement about it ​ Evaluating crime prevention programs: How does the program work, does the program reduce crime, is the program cost-effective? ​ Why its important: Improve our ability to achieve desired outcomes, prevent harm, spent taxpayer dollars wisely ​ Logic model​ ○​ Inputs ​ What resources go into what program?; money, trainer staff, equipment ○​ Activities ​ What actual tasks are involved?; trained staff mentor students 2 hours per week for 10 weeks ○​ Outputs ​ What is the immediate product of these activities?; number of students mentored, hours mentored ○​ Outcomes ​ What changes or benefits occurred? ​ Did the program achieve its goals? ​ types of evaluations ○​ Impact evaluations ​ What changed after introduction of the program? ​ Identify outcomes and whether they were causes by the program ​ Examples: implementation of neighborhood watch, did property crime levels change? ​ Challenges: ​ Prevention programs often involve many activities design to reduce crime ​ Prevention programs often target areas where there are many other influences ​ Prevention programs may displace crimes rather than reduce it ○​ Process evaluations ​ How was the program implemented? What is implemented as designed? ​ Did the inputs, activities, and outputs follow the program model ​ Questions ​ What is the goal of the program ​ How are program staff trainde ​ What are the program resources ​ What is the social context in which the program is being implemented ​ Are there obstacles to implementation ​ Did clients participate in the program ​ Challenges:  ​ Process evaluations are common but often not accompanied by impact evaluation (assumed that if the program is implemented correctly then it is successful) but without an impact evaluation we can know whether the program is successful ​ Important because they set the stage for an impact evaluation ○​ Cost-benefit evaluations ​ Did the benefits of the program justify the program costs? ​ This is both process evaluation - what are the costs of inputs - and an impact evaluation - what are the benefits ​ Challenges: ​ How do we monetize benefits, preventing 100 burglaries? (1k x 100 = 100,000, what other benefits? ​ Preventing 100 assaults? How do we measure monetary value of reduced assaults ​ Capturing all benefits is challenging and somewhat subjective ​ Costs of inputs (resources) are not the only cost; also the opportunity cost if not doing something else ○​ Needs evaluation ​ What is the evidence base for the needed change ○​ Theory evaluation ​ What is are the theoretical assumptions made by the program ​ Evaluation quality: ○​ Statistical conclusion validity ​ Describe: ​ whether the intervention effect on the outcome of interest is statistically significant, what is the statistical relationship between the intervention and the outcome ​ Statistical test of relationship between intervention and come produces “effect size”, indicates whether it is statistically significant (refers to how likely it is that the effect occurred by chance) ​ Threats: ​ Small sample; low statistical power to detect an effect, more likely for an effect to be “not significant” with small sample, even if the effect is true (type II error) ​ Multiple tests: if researchers are “phishing” for significant results by running lots of test they are bound to find something (also called p-hacking) ​ Sample heterogeneity: average effect may not be detected due to variabiltiy ○​ Construct validity ​ Describe:  ​ Were the measures of theoretical constructs underlying the intervention and outcome valid? ​ Operational definition and measurement of theoretical constructs; are arrests are valid measure of re-offending, in study evaluating whether interpersonal skills training prevents crime do the program activites actually improve interpersonal skills? ​ Can we make an inference about theoretical hypotheses based on how things were measured? ​ Threats ​ Validity and reliability of outcomes measures; Do our variables measure something consistently (reliability, Do our variables measure what they are intended to measure (validity) ​ Treatment fidelity versus implementation failure; if the program does not work, does this imply that the treatment did not work or that the treatment was not implemented correctly ○​ internal validity ​ Describe: ​ the degree to which the outcome is attributable to the treatment and not some other rival explanation ​ How do we know that the variable of interest (X) causes change in the outcome of interest (Y) ​ Interested in explaining crime (Y); Hypothesis: poverty (X) causes crime (Y) ○​ Notice poverty is associated with crime; as poverty goes up, crimes go up; as poverty goes down, crime goes down, does this mean poverty causes crime? (Not necessarily) ​ Three elements to establish causal effect ○​ Correlation: The cause (X) and effect (Y) are correlated ○​ Temporal ordering: The cause (X) precedes the effect (Y) in time ○​ Elimination of confounding extraneous variables: There is not some third variable “Z” that influence X and Y and explains their correlation ​ Threats: ​ History ○​ Another event happens at the same time as program, did this event cause the change rather than the program? ○​ Ex; Head start: preschool program goes into effect in 1970’s, 20 years later participant education outcomes are improved. Conclusion: preschool programs for at-risk children was effective, but what if sesame street started inthe 1970s as well? ​ Maturation ○​ Change is due to pre-existing trend in natural process; did normal development process (e.g. aging) cause the change, rather than the program? ○​ Ex; anti-depression therapy program: implemented w/ early teenages, 10 years later follow-up reveals virtual 75% reduced depression among participants, conclusion anti-depression therapy program is effective. But what if many depressed teenager naturally “mature out” of depression ​ Testing ○​ Being measured may influence subjects, did the pre-intervention measurements cause the change, rather than the program? ○​ E.g. education program; before starting preschool program kids are given a baseline test, followed by an education program, one year later score better on the same test, conclusion educational program is effective. But what if the baseline test caused the performance improvement ​ Instrumentation ○​ Evaluators may change methods over course of evaluation, did the change in study measures or procedures cause the change, rather than the program?​ Ex; anti-bullying programs, simple survey assesses school bullying problems, evaluators later amend survey to include more questions, measured bullying increases in later surveys, conclusion program causes harm. But what if the new survey just captures more examples of bullying than the original survey ​ Statistical regression ○​ Regression to the mean, subjects at extremes will naturally regress to less extreme positions (outliers move toward the mean) ○​ Ex; anti-poverty program targets the poorest people, poverty is reduced among participants over time, conclusion anti-poverty program is effective. But targeted group represents a statistically extreme ​ Differential attrition (morality) ○​ Subjects drop out of treatment over time ○​ Ex; mentoring program, after 5 years 90% of original sample remains, deviant behaviors reduce by 50%, conclusion program is effective. But what is the 10% who dropped out were most deviant? ​ Selection threat (bias)  ○​ The treatment group is systematically different from the comparison group. Pre-treatment characteristics of the selected group is associated with the outcome of interest ○​ Ex; juvenile transfer to criminal court, study compares 100 juvenile offenders in criminal court with 100 juveniles in juvenile court, transferred juveniles are 5 times as likely to re-offend compared to non-transferred juveniles, and the conclusion transfer causes higher recidivism. But what if the transferred juveniles were “worse” than the juveniles who were not transferred ○​ external validity ​ Describe: ​ Can the results of the evaluation be generalized? If a program reduces property crime in Tallahassee will same program reduce property crime in Seattle? ​ Three ways to increase external validity ○​ Random population samples ○​ Large-scale multi-site intervention ○​ A systematic review of multiple evaluation of interventions ​ Threats: ​ Program details can never be replicated exactly; interaction between program and attributes of place, victim, offender, intervenor, community, etc ​ Crime and non-crime option: types of crime opportunities vary from site to site, and may be important to program effects ​ Dosage: Intensity and frequency of intervention varies from site to site and dosage level may alter impact ○​ descriptive validity ​ Describe: ​ Does the presentation of the evaluation findings provide the key features needed to assess its quality ​ Is there sufficient information to evaluate the statical conclusion validity, construct validity, internal validity, and external validity ​ Evaluation designs ○​ Random experiments ​ Random allocation allows the researcher to assume that the only systematic differences between the treatment and comparison groups are found in the treatments of interventions that are applied ○​ Quasi-experimental designs ​ Using some non-random allocation technique to establish equivalence between treatment and control groups (matching, natural experiment)  ○​ Non-experimental designs ​ Uses statistical controls to isolate the effects of treatment ​ Limitations ​ Non-experimental methods rely on a “knowledge” solution to the problem of confounding variables ​ Do we ever know all the confounding variables? No, social world is too complex which leads to “omitted variable bias” Can be positive: inflating the true effect or negative: underestimating the true effect ○​ Maryland scale of scientific methods ​ Correlation between crime prevent program and measure of crime outcome at a single point ​ Measures of crime outcome before and after program with no comparable control condition ​ Comparison between 2+ units of analysis, one with and one without the program ​ Comparison between multiple units with and without program, controlling for other factors; or non-equivalent comparison group with only minor differences (ex; quasi-experimental) ​ Random assignment to program (reatment) and control conditions ​ Highest internal validity ​ Random experiments: If two groups are randomly assigned, systematic differences between the groups is highly unlikely. If such a difference exist they are duc to chance, random allocation eliminates most threats to internal validity ​ This solution to confounding relies on randomness rather than knowledge, good because our knowledge is always limited ​ Relationship between effect size and quality? ​ Evidence-based social policy ○​ Describe ​ The evidence-based approach stresses moving beyond factors of ideology, politics, costs, ethics, social background, clinical experience, expert opinion, and anecdote, and to consider the results of scientific studies (gained popularity in the 1990s) ​ Challenges: ​ Methods used in program evaluations are not uniform, studies use different methods, studies also differ in populations studied and social context ​ Many studies reach opposite conclusions, researchers can “pick and choose results”; traditional reviews in which researchers make relative judgments about what works by using some unknown and inexplicit process of reasoning, were fraught with potential for bias. ○​ Reviewing “best” evidence ​ Systematic review ​ Transparency: Define the problem and the scope of the review up front, this is called “inclusion” and “exclusion” criteria ​ Collect all high quality evidence on given research question ​ Meta-analysis ​ Statistical technique whereby the average effect across reviewed studies can be calculated; average of these effects produce a quantitative “summary “effect” ​ Requires that studies are looking at the same relationship; cannot summarize studies with different research questions of fundamentally different research designs ​ More sophisticated than the “vote counting” approach, vote counting = counting how many studies find effective versus not effective ​ Campbell Collaboration ​ Established in 2000; named after psychological Donald Campbell (1916-1996), advocated idea that social programs should be evaluated by best evidence ​ Publishes systematic reviews (and meta-analyses) to advance evidence-based social policy ​ “Created to prepare, update, and disseminated systematic reviews of evidence on what works relevant to social and education intervention”