Area-based policies for crime prevention

Applied Geography (1986), 6, 281-295

Area-based

policies for crime prevention

David T. Herbert

Department of Geography, University College of Sb*ansea, Singleton Park, Swansea, West Glamorgan, SA2 8PP, UK and Keith D. Harries

Department of Geography, University of Maryland Baltimore County, Catonsville, Md 21228, USA Abstract The new emphasis upon crime prevention which has appeared in recent years has led to realignments in policing policy in both the United Kingdom and the United States. Although by no means leading to the abandonment of the more traditional forms of policing, schemes such as Neighbourhood Watch and the wider concept of community policing involve far greater levels of interaction between the police and the public. Area-based policies have appeared in numerous forms and have proved convenient ways for crime control resources to be organized. Early experiments in policing practice have not produced clear answers on the effectiveness of various strategies and there are wider issues of crime identification and control to be considered. A number of schemes of different kinds, ranging from target-hardening projects which increase physical security in particular areas, to attempts to involve communities in more effective social control are reviewed, and it is argued that the established methodologies of urban geography have much to offer in the monitoring and evaluation of crime prevention schemes of this kind. Introduction Traditional role’ with

policing in many parts of the world has taken the form of a ‘deterrent a heavy emphasis upon vehicle patrols, specialized squads and criminal

investigation aimed at the apprehension of known offenders (Baldwin and Kinsey 1982). Nevertheless, this emphasis has not led to any significant reduction of crime rates, but has had the effect of distancing the police from the public which they serve. This distancing has been exaggerated by the increased impact of new forms of information technology (such as computers and radio control) on policing practice, and also by a centralization process which tends to create larger geographical areas of police responsibility. In Britain, one of the main changes occurred in the 196Os, when the number of Police Areas in England and Wales was reduced from 125 to 43 with a series of amalgamations. In recent years, however, increased attention has been given to crime prevention. This is seen as a necessary complement to the more conventional style of policing. Crime prevention is less concerned with the search for offenders than with creating conditions in which offences are less likely to occur. It involves management of the environment in which people live and work, consideration of the factors which make some environments more vulnerable to crime than others, and of ways in which these might be controlled. The term ‘environment’ needs to be explained in this context. 0143-6228/86/040281-15 $03.00 0 1986 Butterworth & Co (Publishers) Ltd

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Area-based policies for crime prevention

Crime prevention places some emphasis upon the qualities of the built environment and ways in which design or layout can be improved to reduce vulnerability to crime; this may be achieved, for example, by increasing levels of surveillance in spaces between buildings (Newman 1972), or by eliminating specific features, such as walkways, which are thought to have detrimental effects (Coleman 1985). Physical security may be improved by target-hardening, such as the fitting of new kinds of locks on windows or doors. Crime prevention also recognizes, however, that the social environments within which crime occurs are directly relevant to levels of vulnerability; if a greater level of awareness of crime can be instilled into a local community and some kind of general responsibility for surveillance can be accepted, these too contribute to crime prevention. Part of the argument developed in this paper is that as crime prevention policies develop they reveal some of the methodological aspects of applied geography. Further, it argues that geographers have a significant role to play both in the identification of those policies best suited to particular circumstances and also in the task of monitoring the effectiveness of policies which have been applied. The fact that high crime rates, as identified by official statistics, tend to cluster within cities and to demarcate particularly ‘vulnerable areas’ has been observed over long periods of time. In the middle of the 19th century, for example, social commentators such as Mayhew (1862) recognized crime areas within certain districts of central London; historians such as Tobias (1976) have studied these criminal areas, whilst Shaw and McKay (1942) located delinquency areas in 20th-century Chicago. Research influenced by the Chicago studies, in particular, has developed an ecological tradition which has recently been reformulated as ‘geographies of crime’ by Harries (1974), Davidson (1981), Herbert (1982) and others. With the emergence of ‘environmental criminology’ (Brantingham and Brantingham 1981) a vvider range of criminological research has developed a more explicit interest in place as a significant parameter for any criminal event. Building upon a much earlier tradition of studying ‘the distribution of crime in space and what that implies for crime prevention’ (Brantingham and Brantingham 1975: 12), environmental criminology suggests that of the four dimensions which characterize the criminal event-the IaM, the offender, the target and the place-it is the fourth of these dimensions, the place at which a criminal event occurs, which should be singled out for more detailed attention. This approach, which is sometimes labelled as ‘situational’, examines the cues or stimuli which are present in local environments and which may promote the occurrence of a criminal event. Environmental criminology also has links with the defensible space ideas popularized in the early 1970s by Newman (1972), vvhich have a similar focus upon the offence rather than the offender and upon the place at which the offence occurs. The most direct policy implications of environmental criminology are those which can be summarized as situational crime prevention, described by Brantingham (1984) as the approach of the future. Area-based

crime prevention

policies

Both the long-evident fact that crime rates tend to be particularly high in certain parts of the city, and the recent formulation of environmental criminology, can be related to the increased use of policy initiatives in crime prevention which are area-based. By this is meant the practice of identifying bounded territories within the city, usually at what might be termed the ‘neighbourhood’ scale, and concentrating resources and policies for improvement upon those areas. Area policies (see Eyles 1979 for a useful review) have a number of general fallibilities such as the significance which their

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boundaries assume and the fact that, however defined, they will neither include all problem individuals nor exclude some individuals who are not problematic. The main counter to this kind of criticism is the argument that area policies were never intended to replace policies aimed at individuals but merely to complement them. Glickman (198 1:492-3) expressed this well: there has been a conceptual gap in the argument over place policies . . . and policies . . . they are often juxtaposed as alternatives rather than observed rightly as complements.

people

The other major criticism of area policies is that many social problems have their origin outside local areas and that locally-derived initiatives may therefore not be appropriate. This argument cannot be dismissed, but the very fact that localities are the places at which the real impact of many social problems is felt amply justifies a focus upon problem areas. In the conclusion to this paper, the merits of area policies in the particular context of crime prevention will be assessed. For the moment, the assertion is that there is sufficient merit to justify their use. Where crime prevention policies have been area-based, they have normally focused on areas in which there are high rates of known crime. The emergence of this kind of methodology can be seen in recent Home Office statements (Smith and Laycock 1985) advocating the virtues of ‘crime analysis’. This begins from the proposition that patterns of crime vary greatly from one area to the next, and even within relatively modest-sized towns on a street-to-street basis. Although always expressed in simple and-commonsense terms, this kind of crime analysis acknowledges some of the basic and most consistent findings of social ecology and social geography. Reinforcing this trend is the fact that much of the thrust towards the establishment of crime prevention panels in the United Kingdom since 1964 has emphasized the need for localized studies of crime, and some of the early funded projects were formulated in terms of local areas. Why should these emphases in research and policy have arisen? Firstly, as already argued, there is the acceptance of the fact that some areas within the city suffer much more from crime than others; whilst a significant variation occurs according to type of crime, the fact of clustering remains clear. Secondly, there is an awareness that only a small percentage of total crime is initially observed and reported by the police themselves; at least 85 per cent of known offences are brought to the notice of the police by victims, bystanders or other members of the general public. Police, or indeed any other security personnel, rarely catch an offender in the act of committing an offence (Mayhew et a/. 1979). Offenders are most likely to be observed by those normally in places where offences occur, principally residents in residential areas and employees at places of work. Thirdly, there is the belief that, despite the emergence of an increasingly mobile society, people still identify with particular residential areas or ‘neighbourhoods’-places for which they hold some sense of belonging and responsibility. Arguments for the reality of neighbourhoods, local communities, or home areas are frequent in the literature (Pacione 1984), and recent legislation in both Britain and the United States has built upon this belief. In the United States, for example, the National Commission of Neighborhoods was set up following the National Neighborhood Policy Act of 1977 (Bratt 1985), whilst in Britain Community Councils within urban areas followed local government reorganization in 1974. These neighbourhoods continue to be seen as one basis for policy and action. Fourthly, there is a legacy of enthusiasm for Newman’s (1972) ‘defensible space’ idea, which in part argued that in the design qualities of buildings some attention should be given to the need for physical security. Such a philosophy is demanding in

284

Area-based

policies/or

crime prevention

terms of resources and, especially where policy is to upgrade existing housing stock in the public sector, an area policy places the strategy within manageable limits. Finally, there is the more general point that, where policing resources are scarce, the idea of concentrating those resources into areas where the recognized problems are greatest has considerable appeal. A number of crime prevention strategies currently practised in Britain and the United States can be classified as area policies and Fig. 1 attempts a typology. There is a general disclaimer in policy documents to the effect that crime prevention needs to be adapted to the individual characteristics of particular localities; guidelines and common features exist but each scheme may have its own special features. Using Fig. 1 as a framework some comments will be offered on the various types of schemes. Tactical policing There are several paths which may lead the police to adopt area policies in the task of achieving effective crime control. Morris and Heal (1981) make the distinction between crime control and law enforcement. Whereas law enforcement is primarily concerned with bringing to justice those who have broken the law, crime control is a broader term which includes the range of activities designed to encourage the citizen’s respect for the law. It is in this broader area of crime control that policing is concerned with crime prevention. Tactical policing may take the form of an area policy where particular districts are targeted for intensive policing, or may involve various forms of patrols. Targeting of has several meanings in police work but generally implies the concentration resources, usually manpower, on selected areas within cities which have recognized high rates of crime. American policy has tended to be based upon the assumption that a visible police presence both deters offenders and reduces residents’ fear of crime. How true this is seems to be a matter of some debate. The general experience has been to show that some forms of saturation patrol may have the effect of reducing crime levels in the selected area (Clarke and Hough 1984). Nevertheless, perhaps the two best-known American studies are in fact contradictory. The much-cited Kansas City Police Experiment lasted for one year from September 1972 and followed three contrasted patrol strategies in different areas (Kelling et al. 1974). The first strategy was reactive in the sense that there were no regular patrols but police reacted to notification of crimes; the second involved a

Broad strategy

tactical policing

Type of scheme

crime control or law enforcement types of police patrol inrensive policing: targeting

physical

measures

social awareness

better design principles: liveable environments security devices, ‘target hardening’ property marking neighbourhood watch community policing total approach-priority

Figure 1. Area-based

crime prevention

estates

policies:

a typology

David T. Herberr and Keirh D. Harries

285

greatly increased police presence; the third involved the maintenance of normal levels of policing. The experiment concluded that the different strategies had no significant impacts on levels of crime. By contrast, New York’s Operation 25 in the 1950s found that an increased police presence led to a 55 a6 per cent decrease in felonies over a sixmonth period. Both these studies and other similar projects are questionable on the grounds of methodology, controls and proper evaluation (see Lowman 1982). Besides being targeted onto particular areas, the known times at which crimes occur should also be used in policing strategy; again the ‘stop and search’ kind of targeting and careful surveillance of known offenders form part of this kind of policy. There are other variants on targeting policy. Some kinds of neighbourhood team policing aim to maintain ‘order on the beat’ in known problem areas by moving on vagrants, drunks and disorderly youths in a systematic way, using police officers working as a team which has a longer-term identity with that area. This type of exercise is designed to stabilize problem areas and halt downward spirals which produce outward migration and increased fear of crime. There are caveats associated with this style of targeting policy; the effects of saturation patrolling, for example, may be short term and, even if crime in the target area is reduced, this may be at the cost of displacement to other areas. A further problem is that police working in this targeted or more focused way may be influenced by preconceived ideas in terms of target groups or areas. Lea and Young (1984), for example, argue that the police have different attitudes to what they define as ‘respectable’ and ‘non-respectable’ parts of the city; in the former police work proceeds through consensus and negotiation, in the latter by force and coercion. In their review of specialist police patrolling, Morris and Heal (1981) conclude that research has shown that small absolute changes in numbers of officers patrolling an area appear unrelated to the volume of crime reported (see also Mawby 1979). Whereas Kelling et al. (1980) produce evidence that specialist patrols improve crime control, there are also fears that gains in this respect may be at the cost of some deterioration in police-public relations. Physical

measures

Whereas tactical policing is restricted to ‘internal’ strategies by which the police decide how to make most effective use of their manpower and resources, schemes which can be described as ‘physical measures’ require some greater liaison between police and public. Some schemes of this kind are general and seek, for example, to encourage better design principles in the development of new housing projects; others are more particular and may encourage individual households to improve the security of their property by fitting better locks to doors or windows. On the more general front, the Home Office in Britain is seeking to ensure that plans for new housing estates take into account what is known about the links between layout, building design and rates of crime. Newman’s (1972) specifications of the means to achieve ‘defensible space’ remain influential, while Coleman’s (1985) work in relation to public-sector housing in some London boroughs has similar practical value. The South Wales Police have taken the initiative of appointing an Architect Liaison Officer with the task of advising builders on good security aspects of design and on ways of generally improving the state of security in the community. As an example of a more specific project, that conducted by the police at the Scotswood estaEin Newcastle-upon-Tyne was directly designed to test the effect of particular target-hardening measures on crime rates. This project involved the fitting of ground-floor security devices, mainly door and window locks, to a run-down public-sector estate with a high crime rate. (The emphasis upon ground-floor points

286

Area-based policies for crime prevention

of entry was justified by evidence that only 2 to 3 per cent of entries to offences were made above this level.) This scheme was carefully monitored results are described below. Property markin g may also be used. This placing some permanent unique mark or serial number on items of property been used widely in crime prevention schemes.

commit and the involves and has

Social awareness

Area initiatives listed under this heading attempt to improve crime prevention by controlling the social conditions which surround the criminal event. Public involvement in schemes such as Neighbourhood Watch helps to increase levels of surveillance and common concern within local communities; various forms of community policing enhance the working relationship between police and public whereas more ‘total approach’ projects on problem estates are designed to draw police, public and a range of local agencies into closer cooperation. The term Neighbourhood Watch describes one set of area policies although other descriptions such as Home Watch, Block Watch and Alert Neighbours are also used. Neighbourhood Watch rests on the concept of the good neighbourhood (Smith 1984) and basically involves neighbours joining together in a collaborative exercise to maintain surveillance on each others’ homes. Besides individual properties, the immediate surroundings and other spaces or buildings within the territorial neighbourhood are included within the schemes. The initial task of defining a neighbourhood, particularly in terms of its boundaries, has not typically been a systematic procedure but has been made on commonsense and ad hoc grounds. The police have direct inputs to all Neighbourhood Watch schemes principally through the home-beat officers, community constables and crime prevention officers; their roles are mainly advisory and coordinating. As Neighbourhood Watch is intended to reduce levels of crime, particularly burglary and property theft, it should have the greatest potential in high-rise areas. In fact it has tended to flourish in middle-income suburbia where the risk of crime is relatively low but where the most favourable conditions for local social interaction already exist. The most systematic evaluations of Neighbourhood Watch to date have come from the United States but these results have produced little consensus (see Clarke and Hope 1984). Another crime prevention scheme which is essentially area-based can be summarized under the generic title of community policing. Alderson (1979:239) summarized this as: a style of day-to-day policing in residential areas in which the public and other social agencies take part by helping to prevent crime and particularly juvenile delinquency through social as opposed to legal action. Key components may include the deployment of area constables; a much stronger emphasis on liaison and cooperative roles with, for example, schools and other local agencies; and various forms of team policing in which a small group of officers is responsible for a particular area. Community policing is designed to reduce the ‘distance’ between police and public through closer involvement in the routines of daily life and, in so doing, it addresses one of the fundamental points of crime prevention policy (Clarke and Hough 1984): the impact of the police stems from the level of regard with which they are held by the public. One of the main qualities of community policing is that it can lead to a style of policing which is more sensitively attuned to the needs of local communities, and responsibility for control of crime within the community is shared between police and public. Morris and Heal (1981)

David T. Herbert and Keith D. Harries

287

reviewed the nature of the community policing model and its applications in several countries. Although empirical testing of the effectiveness of community policing in Britain is rare, Pollard (1978) showed that the flow of information from the public about criminal activity increased with better police-public liaison. A more general focus on problem areas as bases for crime prevention policiesthe total approach-is evident in relation to public sector housing areas variously termed as ‘difficult to let’ or ‘priority estates’. In the United Kingdom, the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders (NACRO) undertook its first neighbourhood crime prevention initiative in 1975 in the Cunningham Road estate in Widnes, Cheshire. This scheme was designed to establish whether vandalism and other forms of minor offences would decrease if residents became more involved in the running of their estate, and if agreed environmental and other improvements were made. The NACRO Crime Prevention Unit was established in 1979 with Department of the Environment funding and with a brief to develop similar neighbourhood crime prevention schemes. Projects can be located in a range of areas from inner city districts to suburban estates but are always aimed at problem areas. Working along similar principles, the Greater London Council in 1980 set aside funds to establish a Safe Neighbourhoods Unit for work on London’s housing estates. Inter-agency cooperation is one key feature of the NACRO schemes. The typical components of a scheme are a steering committee, local publicity including explanatory leaflets, a sample survey of residents’ attitudes, group meetings and subsequent monitoring. Projects have led to improvement under the headings of physical upgrading and repairs, environmental enhancements, service and maintenance, and better community organization. More direct crime prevention measures include security improvements such as phone-entry to buildings with multioccupance, zoning for security within larger blocks of flats, better door locks and regular police surgeries. Monitoring of these schemes has shown significant decreases of offences within the target areas (Bright and Petterson 1984). In the United Kingdom the Department of the Environment also established its own specialist projects in selected public-sector housing areas in 1979, with its Priority Estates Project. At this time, projects were set up in Hackney and Lambeth within London and also at Bolton in Lancashire. The emphases in these schemes were upon tenant involvement, better coordination of the various services, and the establishment of local maintenance teams to ensure that properties were well maintained and that common areas were adequately cared for. Crime prevention was tackled in a variety of ways such as the installation of entry phones linked to closedcircuit television in some high-rise blocks, and some experiments in evening security patrols. The projects have served as models of ways in which the continuing decline of run-down estates may be reversed, and an integral part of the work has been the dissemination of good practice to other areas. In August 1981, following the inner city riots of that year in several British cities, Community Refurbishment Schemes (CRS) were introduced with similar aims of environmental upgrading and the involvement of tenants in the management and security of their estates. These are examples of national initiatives which are area-based and which have strong crime prevention components. There are also many local initiatives in policing and crime prevention which can be designated as area policies. In Scotland, a 1975 report argued that there was a strong link between deprived areas and crime: ‘the area itself-its physical deprivation, its lack of social and recreation amenities, its lack of a constructive community spirit and of social controls-is a significant factor in the incidence of criminality’ (Calderwood 1983). Within Strathclyde, 114 areas of multiple deprivation were identified for priority treatment and, by the early 198Os,

288

Area-based policies for crime prevention

work had started on 45 of these. For each area, profiles were built up using data for employment, poverty, number of welfare services, social work, education, policing and crime. Community involvement policin g was initiated with much greater emphasis on liaison and accessibility and there were specific initiatives to help people with drugs, alcohol or gambling-related problems. In Grimsby, Humberside, an estate refurbishment programme has been started following a policing project on a local problem estate. Discussion so far has centred upon the increasing role of crime prevention in policing strategies and upon the greater use of area-based initiatives in this context. As described above, these initiatives are various and range from general estate improvement schemes aimed at upgradin g the environment, better inter-agency collaboration and tenant involvement, to specific target-hardening projects. Monitoring is built into many of these schemes, largely as an ongoing part of the actual process of estate management, but careful evaluations of specific projects are exceptional. As Heal (1984) argues, monitoring is the most neglected component of a broad crime prevention strategy; if progress in prevention policy is to be made, we need to know whether or not the action we are taking is working. Although Heal places his emphasis upon a very basic form of monitoring which gives some indication of the value of a project, there is also a place for careful academic evaluation. As in other fields where area policies have been applied (Eyles 1979) the case for proper monitoring and evaluation is clear. Monitoring

and evaluation:

Target-hardening:

Scotsrvood

some examples

Estate,

Newcastle

One of the best available examples of the careful evaluation of a crime prevention area project is that conducted by Allatt (1984) in the Scotswood estate targethardening scheme in Newcastle. The research gathered police data over a five-year period for residential burglary, attempted burglary and ‘displacement’ crimes which involved theft for monetary gain. These crime statistics were gathered for the police subdivision in which the target estate was located, for the target estate itself, for a control estate of matching characteristics and for two other nearby residential areas which might be affected by any displacement of crimes from the target estate with its increased protection. The second data-collection component of the research was a two-stage survey, before and after the security improvement scheme of spring 1980, of tenants in the target estate. As stated above, the research showed that the upgrading of security had positive effects for residents in the first year of the scheme. Whereas burglary rates rose sharply on the control estate and in the police subdivision as a whole, they steadied in the target estate and attempted burglaries actually declined. In the second year of the scheme, however, burglary rates in the target estate rose again. The researcher hypothesized that this was related either to greater awareness by offenders of the security devices and of ways in which to cope with them, or to growing carelessness on the part of householders in their use of the devices. There was also some evidence that crimes were being displaced to the nearby residential areas which were included in the study, though these increases did not account for all of the offences which were prevented in the target area. There was therefore a direct link between targethardening and reduced crime rates. Results from the Newcastle project imply that target-hardening does produce results on certain kinds of housing estates. There is other evidence, however, that physical security is of less concern to the offender than

David T. Herbert and Keiih D. Harries

289

occupancy, likely rewards and chances of being seen (Winchester and Jackson 1982). Another issue is people’s ability to adapt and properly use physical security; the main reason for the falling effectiveness of devices in Scotswood after one year was thought to be householder carelessness. Again, security devices are expensive and for many the cost of living with crime may be less than the cost of preventing it. There is thus a danger that protection is something only available to those who can afford it, and, indeed, differentials of this kind are already evident in the United States (Bayley 1980). Research also shows that the public respond better to security advice when it comes from the police rather than through the media (van Dijk 1984).

Property marking schemes Another form of target-hardening involves the use of property-marking schemes which allow all items of value in a household to be traced to their original holders. It also involves homes in which property has been marked being identified by a visible motif. One such experiment conducted in three adjacent communities in South Wales obtained an 85 to 90 per cent response rate from a police crime prevention initiative, leading to a reduction in burglary rates of around 40 per cent (Laycock 1985). At Revelstoke, Ottawa, a group of 135 houses were subject to a detailed propertymarking project. Signs were placed outside each property to state that marking had taken place and there was media publicity. Over the succeeding 18-month period there were no burglaries against these properties. At Burnaby, British Columbia, an intensive property identification,scheme in 800 dwellings produced a 79 per cent reduction in break-ins over a three-month period (Lowman 1982).

Neighbourhood

Watch Scheme, Tulsa, Oklahoma

As a further example of a study aimed at monitoring the effectiveness of a specific crime prevention area policy, reference is made to a Neighbourhood Watch project in Tulsa, Oklahoma. North American community crime prevention programmes have their roots in more general models which seek greater community involvement in security at the neighbourhood scale. Here, as in the United Kingdom, terms such as ‘neighbourhood’ and ‘community’ are used in a rather loose way, and the selection of target areas is not typically preceded by any rigorous exercise in neighbourhood definition. One contribution vvhich geographers might make to such projects is therefore by instilling some more systematic and objective procedures to the process of selecting target areas. In Tulsa, the Alert Neighbours project is a form of Neighbourhood Watch which has been initiated in several parts of the city. ‘Neighbourhoods’ seem to have been selected following commonsense rules and one of these was chosen, along with a matched control area, to test the effectiveness of the Alert Neighbours project. A random sample of 40 households in each of the two residential areas was surveyed in an attempt to gather information on crime perception, victimization experience, local social interaction, and security practice. Both areas were essentially middle-class suburbs (as were the other target areas in Tulsa) and were indicative of the fact that crime prevention programmes are most easily adopted in areas of high educational attainment and civic awareness. These are not, however, areas which suffer most from crime and the Neighbourhood Watch model has been least successfully promoted in those inner city areas of low social cohesion where crime rates are highest. In the Tulsa target area the Alert Neighbours programme involved regular

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Area-based policies for crime prevention

meetings, block clubs led by trained volunteers and a police officer, and the systematic dissemination of information on crime and security practice. Part of the advice given to householders included the use of ‘dead-bolt’ locks, although there was otherwise no serious attempt to manipulate the built environment. From the survey, target and control areas were compared in terms of security practice, social characteristics, fear of crime, and incidence of crime, particularly burglary. Results showed that the Alert Neighbours project had little impact on security practice in the target area. Most of the crime prevention advice given was straightforward and residents typically already used those security devices anyway. Nor was there any marked difference in usage between target and control areas. Some studies (Norton and Courlander 1982) have found that crime prevention schemes may actually increase fear of crime, but there was no evidence for this in the target area. There was, however, some evidence for an increased awareness of crime in that a significant number of respondents in the target area thought that burglary had increased over the past five years. One interpretation of this is that Alert Neighbours had increased awareness of crime but had not increased fear; this can be seen as one positive achievement of the project. Alert Neighbours also seemed to have had little impact on the incidence of property crimes in the target area. This area actually reported more burglaries during the operation of the project than did the control area, though levels of offences were really very low in both areas. In this particular study, therefore, a Neighbourhood Watch type of scheme seemed to have no general measurable effects on the target area over the range of characteristics which were examined. This is not an indictment of the scheme in general, though other evidence from the United States has not produced a consensus view of the effectiveness of Neighbourhood Watch (Reppetto 1984; Titus 1984). Rather, it reflects the particular characteristics of the study area. The Tulsa example, in which both target and control areas were low-risk districts typified by middle-class norms of high social interaction, was unlikely to produce dramatic evidence of change. Nevertheless, if it is to reduce burglary and fear of crime in general, Neighbourhood Watch has logically to be promoted where risks and anxiety from crime are greater. The problem is that ‘anemic’ parts of the inner city which best fit those descriptions are often less fertile grounds for Neighbourhood Watch than socially-cohesive suburbia. An example of this is offered by Smith’s (1984) study of the Whittier Alliance in Minneapolis. As part of a crime prevention scheme that included more police and public education on crime prevention, block clubs were established. These clubs or active groups were targeted at small structures, as was a subsidy for security hardware. The irony was that large structures and their residents were the real victims of crime, yet these were outside the schemes. Crime did in fact increase in Whittier, but over a third of participants perceived a reduction. Swansea

As a last set of area examples, some features of two contrasted residential areas in Swansea are considered, both of which suffer relatively high rates of burglary and theft from dwellings but neither of which are currently targeted for area policies. The objective with these examples is to consider the kinds of crime prevention policies which may be best suited to the types of residential environments which they represent. About 60 households were surveyed in each of these areas as part of a more general study of attitudes towards crime and its prevention. One of the areas, located within the inner city, has a high proportion of one or two-person households in subdivided dwellings and owner-occupied single dwellings; there is a mixture of

David T. Herbert and Keith D. Harries Table 1. Selected

291

social indicators

Social indicators 1 or 2-person households 5 or more person households Professional type occupations Semi- or unskilled occupations Owner-occupiers Resident 3 years or less Households with children aged 3-15

LA area

IC area

49.2 15.9 1.6 76.1 3.3 30.2 36.5

51.5 13.6 9.5 12.7 72.7 28.8 25.8

ivore: All figures are percentages

social

class groups

and a relatively

high residential

turnover

(Table

1). This area has

been through several stages of development, and the present morphology and social composition reflects this with a mixture of larger and smaller houses, some in multioccupance. The second area was a local authority estate on the edge of the city with over three-quarters of the workforce in semi-skilled or unskilled jobs and over a quarter unemployed. About one-third of respondents in the estate had children under the age of 15 years. From a range of indicators used to profile the areas as ‘neighbourhoods’ (Herbert and Hyde 198.5), the inner city area (IC) emerged as a place with generally weak community features and low cohesiveness, whereas the local authority estate (LA) was quite strong in community terms (Table 2). When respondents were asked to characterize their area in terms of a range of social problems, the LA area vvas the worst in terms of all five indicators of problems from children, youths, vandalism, noise and litter (Table 3). The IC area was seen as particularly problematic for noise and litter. In terms of victimization, 7.5 per cent of LA respondents claimed to have been the victims of crime between 1980 and 1982, 27 per cent on three or more occasions. In the IC area, 34 per cent had experienced crime over this period. W’here the crime involved entry to property, back doors were the most common points of access though windows were frequently mentioned. In the LA area the identified means of entry were via forced locks and door panels and broken window fittings; in the IC area there was little faith in better physical security and a quarter of the sample believed that improved physical security would deter no-one. People in both areas-but particularly those in the LA area- recognized the vulnerability of their area to crime; 84 per cent in the IC area thought that burglary was common in their

Table 2. Community

cohesion

indicator Neighbourhood friends seen at least once a week Family in neighbourhood seen at least once a week Neighbours seen frequently Note: All figures are percentages

Table 3. Local social problems

LA area

IC area

30.9

13.4

36.8 40.3

16.4 31.8

Indicator

LA area

IC area

Vandalism is common Youths are a problem Children are problems Noise is a problem Litter is a problem

65.0 52.3 47.6 63.5 68.3

22.7 33.8 41.0 51.5 66.7

Note: All figures are percentages

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Area-based

policies for

crime prevenhon

areas. Less than 20 per cent thought that there was an adequate police presence, while very few showed awareness of local police officers or had asked for any form of advice on crime prevention. Given the range of problems and the vulnerability of their residential areas, hovv did residents react to crime? IC residents appeared in general to have a rather lax attitude towards dwelling security. By contrast, LA respondents showed a stronger consciousness of the need for security. Respondents in the IC area were consistently more likely to leave windows open when they left the house. For dovvnstairs front windows, for example, 71 per cent in the IC area said they always closed them compared with 87 per cent in the LA area. For downstairs back windovvs the figures were 67 per cent compared with 87 per cent. Habitual locking of doors showed a difference in the same direction. About 45 per cent in the IC area and 58 per cent in the LA area claimed to have deadlocks fitted to at least one door. Findings of social attitudes towards security showed less cohesion in the IC area. Only 41 per cent of respondents in the IC area said they would always or usually call out to strangers at a neighbour’s door compared to 59 per cent in the LA area (Table 4). In other ways differences were less clear. Fifty nine per cent in the IC area and 54 per cent in the LA area would inform neighbours if they went away for a few days; 27 per cent in the IC area and 33 per cent in the LA area would leave a key with neighbours in those circumstances. Fear of crime was particularly high in the LA area, where 68 per cent were worried that they or their families would become victims of crime and over onethird regarded this as a big worry. For the IC area the comparable figures were 53 per cent and one-fifth. Table 4. Security practice

Indicator Always lock front door Always leave lights on when out Call out to strangers at neighbour’s Inform neighbours if away

house

LA area

IC area

95.2 72.5 58.8 54.0

83.3 55.2 40.9 59.1

Note: All figures are percentages

These areas offer examples of two residential areas which experience relatively high crime rates, the former being particularly recognized as a ‘problem area’. The areas represent different types within the broad spectrum of urban neighbourhoods; the LA area is a typical problem estate with many examples of run-down and neglect, high rates of petty offences and a large number of known resident offenders. By comparison, the IC area is by no means among the worst examples of inner-city districts but does have features of mixture and transience which lend themselves to opportunist offending. The question is whether either of these profiles give guidelines for crime prevention policy. Certainly both areas warrant area policies aimed at crime prevention; in these particular cases there is the advantage that the systematic preparatory work to identify meaningful neighbourhoods had been done (Herbert and Hyde 1985). In addition, the advantage of an area policy is that it can allow a ‘package’ of crime prevention measures to be applied; testing a range of options in any given area before fixing on the most appropriate combination of measures is a logical way to proceed.

David T. Herbert and Keith D. Harries

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Figure 1 listed some of the options that might be adopted. In the case of the IC area, the identified characteristics suggest that target-hardening or a focus on improved physical security would be a valuable initial exercise. This might be combined with community policing but the preconditions of Neighbourhood Watch, a socially cohesive community, do not seem to be available in this area. One could argue that a Neighbourhood Watch scheme would act as a catalyst for local social interaction, but this would be a significantly different argument from one concerned centrally with crime prevention. If the LA area is considered in a similar way, the fact that it can be shown to be a socially cohesive community suggests that there is a case for a scheme from the social awareness category of Fig. 1, such as Neighbourhood Watch. It is also an estate, however, where offenders tend to come from within, so such a scheme may have socially divisive effects. Similarly, there is so g that improved security devices are little faith in the value of target-hardenin unlikely to be maintained with sufficient regularity to be effective. The LA area, in short, is a prime candidate for the type of ‘total approach’ estate scheme practised by NACRO and the Priority Estates programme which attempts a comprehensive upgrading of maintenance, tenant involvement, police-community liaison, etc. Conclusions

Area policies are not new. They have been applied in a variety of social and economic problem areas from housing to education and social work. Educational priority area policy in particular has its critics and these have pointed out some general weaknesses which need to be acknowledged. Where boundaries have to be drawn around areas which are to qualify for positive discrimination, for example, they are bound to be approximate. They will suffer from the ecological fallacy effect by including within their defined territories individuals who do not need aid while leaving outside others who do. This problem is real, and indicates that an area policy in itself cannot be sufficient to deal with social problems of any kind. It must be complemented by policies which focus on individual need wherever it is located. The principal advantage of an area policy is that it does allow some resources to be focused on areas where the problem generally appears to be greatest. It is particularly appropriate to themes such as crime prevention, where it has been amply demonstrated that the problem tends to cluster in specific parts of the city. An area policy for crime prevention can be more easily managed and organized and its effectiveness can be more efficiently monitored. Figure 2 draws up a ‘balance-sheet’ of drawbacks and advantages for area-based policies in the particular context of crime prevention. The argument advanced in this Drawbacks:

Displacement may merely transfer problem elsewhere Effects of policies diminish over time Schemes may be least effective where they are most needed General problem of defining areas

Advantages:

Allows a focus on areas most vulnerable to crime Ameliorative effects on crime rates and fear of crime Focus on locality has wider benefits Means of improving Element of package

Figure 2.

police/public relationships to produce more liveable environments

Area-based crime prevention policies: a ‘balance sheet’

294

Area-based policies for crime prevention

paper has been that, although both general and particular drawbacks remain, there are significant advantages attached to these kinds of policies which merit their continued use. It has also been argued that the kinds of research methodologies employed by geographers which help in the systematic definition and selection of target areas should be more widely used. Profiles of areas of the kind provided in the latter part of this paper are clearly of value in guiding policy-makers towards the bestfit projects for individual areas. The case for monitoring and evaluation has also been made. Here again established research methods are both available and appropriate. Crime prevention policies offer one valid approach to a major social problem and area-based policies will continue to provide a vital ingredient to the broader strategy of crime control. References Alderson, J. (1979) Community policing. Plymouth:

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1 l-23. Brantingham, P. J. and P. L. (eds) (1981) Environmental criminology. Beverly Hills: Sage. Bratt, R. G. (1985) The neighbourhood movement: a blip on the landscape or a blueprint for action? Community Development Journal 20 (2). 80-88. Bright, J. and Petterson, G. (1984) Thesafe neighbourhoods unit: community-based improvement programmes on twelve Inner London housing estates. London: National Association for Care of Offenders and Prevention of Crime. Calderwood, R. (1983) Local authority initiatives: Strathclyde Regional Council. In Crime prevention: a coordinated approach, 21-26. London: Home Office. Clarke, R. V. G. and Hope, T. (1984) Coping with burglary. Boston: Kluwer-Nijhoff. Clarke, R. V. and Hough, M. (1984) Crime andpolice effectiveness. London: HMSO, Home Office Research Study. Coleman, A. (1985) Utopia on trial. London: Hilary Shipman. Connelly, N. M. (1984) A geographic approach to the evaluation of a crime prevention program in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Unpublished MS dissertation, State University of Oklahoma at Stillwater. Davidson, R. N. (1981) Crime and environment. London: Croom Helm. Eyles, J. (1979) Area-based policies for the inner city context: problems and prospects. In Social problems and the city: geographicalperspectives (D. T. Herbert and D. ,M. Smith, eds), 226-243. London: Oxford University Press. Glickman, N. J. (1981) Emerging urban policies in a slow-growth economy: conservative initiatives and progressive responses in the United States. International Journal of Urban

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(Revised

manuscript

received 28 April 1986)