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The public health approach to crime prevention

Programs to prevent and reduce violence sometimes adopt a public health approach to crime prevention. The public health approach helps to bring alternative views, tools and techniques to complement these of criminal justice. This report, from the Australian Institute of Criminology, identifies the significant areas of the process.

Title: The public health approach to crime prevention
Authors: Australian Institute of Criminology
Series: AICrime Reduction Matters, Number 7
Number of pages: 1
Date published: August 2003

Public health focuses on the health of communities and populations as a whole. This approach aims to preserve, promote, and improve health. Rather than treating consequences of crime, public health tries to place emphasis on prevention methods.
There are four traditional key stages in producing an effective public health response to community threats:

• Defining and monitoring of problems

• Identifying problem causes

• Formulating and testing ways of dealing with problems

• Apply measures that are found to work.

Public Health prevention measures consist of primary, secondary, and tertiary interventions. These can take place in following forms, for example to prevent community violence:

• Universal Interventions (Primary)
  Prevention aimed at large, very generalised, groups of people.

• Selected Interventions (Secondary)
  Prevention aimed at those classed as a higher risk or more likeable source of crime

• Indicated interventions (Tertiary)
  Aimed at those who are demonstrated their prominence toward criminal behaviour, and have proven past of demonstrating these activities.

Research shows that emphasis should be given to primary prevention measures and many differing sectors and agencies should collaborate on prevention activities.

Download: The public health approach to crime prevention PDF 244kb

Last update: Tuesday, August 26, 2008