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20 Brit. J. Criminology 136 (1980)
Situational Crime Prevention: Theory and Practice

handle is hein.journals/bjcrim20 and id is 148 raw text is: BRIT. J. CRIMINOL. Vol. 2o No. 2 APRIL i98o SITUATIONAL CRIME PREVENTION: THEORY AND PRACTICE R. V. G. CLARKE (London)* CONVENTIONAL wisdom holds that crime prevention needs to be based on a thorough understanding of the causes of crime. Though it may be conceded that preventive measures (such as humps in the road to stop speeding) can sometimes be found without invoking sophisticated causal theory, physical measures which reduce opportunities for crime are often thought to be of limited value. They are said merely to suppress the impulse to offend which will then manifest itself on some other occasion and perhaps in even more harmful form. Much more effective are seen to be social measures (such as the revitalisation of communities, the creation of job opportunities for unemployed youth, and the provision of sports and leisure facilities), since these attempt to remove the root motivational causes of offending. These ideas about prevention are not necessarily shared by the man-in-the- street or even by policemen and magistrates, but they have prevailed among academics, administrators and others who contribute to the formulation of criminal policy. They are also consistent with a preoccupation of crimino- logical theory with criminal dispositions (cf. Ohlin, 1970; Gibbons, 1971; Jeffery, 1971) and the purpose of this paper is to argue that an alternative theoretical emphasis on choices and decisions made by the offender leads to a broader and perhaps more realistic approach to crime prevention. Dispositional Theories and their Preventive Implications With some exceptions noted below, criminological theories have been little concerned with the situational determinants of crime. Instead, the main object of these theories (whether biological, psychological, or sociological in orientation) has been to show how some people are born with, or come to acquire, a disposition to behave in a consistently criminal manner. This dispositional bias of theory has been identified as a defining charac- teristic of positivist criminology, but it is also to be found in inter- actionist or deviancy theories of crime developed in response to the perceived inadequacies of positivism. Perhaps the best known tenet of at least the early interactionist theories, which arises out of a concern with the social definition of deviancy and the role of law enforcement agencies, is that people who are labelled as criminal are thereby prone to continue in delinquent conduct (see especially Becker, 1962). In fact, as Tizard (1976) and Ross (1977) have pointed out, a dispositional bias is prevalent throughout the social sciences. *Home Office Research Unit, London. This paper is an edited version of a lecture given at Sam Houston State University, Texas, in October 1979. I am grateful for the comments made by Research Unit colleagues on drafts of the paper.