Crime Prevention In The Urban Community

One of today's most pressing issues in criminology and crime prevention is the problem of crime in our cities and towns and its prevention. The topic of crime prevention in the Urban Community was discussed at the 47th International Course of the International Society for Criminology (ISC) held at Chuo University, Tokyo. It was the very first time such an ISC meeting was held in Asia and this meant that finally a relatively large number of Japanese and other Asian participants were able to express their views on criminal policy and crime prevention in urban centres all over the world. Crime in urban communities is not an exclusively Western phenomenon, but it is also a considerable problem in other parts of the world. This makes an interchange of ideas between Western, Eastern and Third-World criminologists particularly important. General characteristics of the urban communities that suffer from a high crime rate are ethnic and racial tensions, a mix of old housing areas and new business districts, a prevailing sense of anonymity, slums and juvenile delinquency. The existence of these general characteristics besides mutual differences makes cooperation in the crime prevention sphere definitely worth the effort.

This book explores multi-year community-based crime prevention initiatives in the United States, from their design and implementation, through 5-year follow ups. It provides an overview of programs of various sizes, affecting diverse communities from urban to rural environments, larger and smaller populations, with a range of site-specific problems. The research is based on a United States federally-funded program called the Byrne Criminal Justice Initiative (BJCI) which began in 2012, and has funded programs in 65 communities, across 28 states and 61 cities. This book serves to document the process, challenges, and lessons learned from the design and implementation of this innovative program. It covers researcher-practitioner partnerships, crime prevention planning processes, programming implementation, and issues related to sustainability of community-policing initiatives that transcend institutional barriers and leadership turnover. Through researcher partnerships at each site, it provides a rich dataset for understanding and comparing the social and economic problems that contribute to criminality, as well as the conditions where prosocial behavior and collective efficacy thrive. It also examines the future of this federally-funded program going forward in a new Presidential administration. This work will be of interest to researchers in criminology and criminal justice, particularly with an interest in translational/applied criminology and crime prevention, as well as related fields such as public policy, urban planning, and sociology.

With this handbook, crime prevention practitioners have a guideline by which they can structure viable crime prevention programs for their communities. Every aspect of developing, organizing, and implementing strategies for urban community participation in crime prevention is covered. The handbook makes a compelling case for using local resources to the greatest extent possible. Much of crime prevention, both in the traditional sense and in the more current "watch out, help out" sense, assumes some base of community cohesion and bond on which to build. There are urban communities that do offer such a starting point, but the many communities that do not have a base of trust are real challenges for crime prevention. The following sections are included in this handbook: (1) "The Need--And Some Hope"; (2) "Understand Crime Prevention"; (3) "The Actors: Roles and Responsibilities"; (4) "Two Types of Urban Communities"; (5) "Know the Community"; (6) "Organize the Community"; (7) "Different Approaches"; and (8) "Action Planning." While the appendix on programs for children and adolescents contains much of interest to educators, the program profiles section, which presents brief descriptions of 50 urban crime prevention programs with their addresses, describes many school-based programs, including tutorial programs and afterschool programs. Five appendixes contain information on recruiting and keeping volunteers, neighborhood watch programs, programs for children and youth, and a list of resource organizations. (SLD)

Crime is often perceived as an urban issue rather than a problem that occurs in rural areas, but how far is this view tenable? This book explores the relationship between crime and community in rural areas and addresses the notion of safety as part of the community dynamics in such areas. Rural Crime and Community Safety makes a significant contribution to crime science and integrates a range of theories to understand patterns of crime and perceived safety in rural contexts. Based on a wealth of original research, Ceccato combines spatial methods with qualitative analysis to examine, in detail, farm and wildlife crime, youth related crimes and gendered violence in rural settings. Making the most of the expanding field of Criminology and of the growing professional inquiry into crime and crime prevention in rural areas; rural development; and the social sustainability of rural areas, this book builds a bridge by connecting Criminology and Human Geography. This book will be suitable for academics, students and practitioners in the fields of criminology, community safety, rural studies, rural development and gender studies.

This book provides an original cross-thematic and wide scope review of crime prevention processes in urban areas that are explicitly based on the cooperation between different scientific and professional fields. Focusing primarily on environmental and community-based crime prevention, this book compiles a peer-reviewed collection of papers and prospective essays that explore how, and to what extent, multi-disciplinarity can be used as a cornerstone for achieving safer cities. Relying on the input from specialists, researchers, decision-makers, and practitioners from around the world, it covers the various stages from theory to implementation, by discussing theoretical stances, interpreting policy and planning guidelines, uncovering unique educational experiences, and narrating insights and lessons learned from innovative research and practice. Hence, it provides vivid discussions and invaluable insights into processes of partnership building, planning, and management, oriented towards establishing successful mechanism for preventing crime and reducing feelings of insecurity in urban areas.