Designing Out Crime
Understanding Situational Crime Prevention
This document is published for archival/historical purposes. It will not be updated.
Research suggests that the majority of criminals commit offences after first weighing up the potential pay off against the risks that they take. Situational crime prevention addresses this by either reducing the pay off or increasing the risk so that the criminal opportunity is not as an attractive proposition.
Title: Understanding Situational Crime Prevention
Author: Australian Institute of Criminology
Series: AIC Crime Reduction Matters No. 3
Date published: June 2003
Number of pages: 2
Situational prevention concentrates on specific crime categories and consists of three main elements:
An articulated theoretical framework - when looking at this section, you must consider what conditions need to offer an attractive criminal opportunity (such as an unlocked car). An example of such a theory is the Routine Activity Theory (RAT)
A standard methodology for tackling specific crime problems - this involves carefully analysing and defining the specific problems you have, identifying possible solutions, implementing them then evaluating the results.
A set of opportunity-reducing techniques - these can be anything which discourages the potential offender from committing their crime, either through target hardening or reducing the pay off for them.
Research into patterns of crime suggests that crime events are not just a product of where criminals live. These patterns also reflect the concentration of opportunities for crime:
Crime is much more likely to occur in certain places or "hotspots"
Theft is highly concentrated on particular "hot products"
Some repeat victims are more likely to experience crime then other people
The report also includes a classification of 25 situation prevention techniques arranged into five principle categories of action.
Download the report "Understanding Situational Crime Prevention" 
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Thanks to the European Crime Prevention Network (EU CPN) for highlighting this publication
Last update: Wednesday, August 27, 2008