Abstract
This article compares Beccaria’s and Situational Crime Prevention’s (SCP) claims across six dimensions. Both perspectives question harsh penalties, embrace crime reduction as a goal, and view some individuals as possessing agency and rationality. The latter two points distinguish them from most other criminological theories that are not focused on crime reduction and downplay offenders’ rationality. Both approaches have also been criticized for ignoring the root causes of crime in society. Importantly though, the approaches also differ. The Classical School and SCP are usually differentiated from positivistic approaches in their assumption of offender agency. This article found, however, that SCP does not assume offender agency in all contexts. In fact, many SCP interventions could be explained in positivistic terms. The analysis indicates that it is sometimes unclear which causal mechanisms underlie each of SCP’s 25 techniques of crime prevention. Clarifying the precise causal mechanism of each technique could lead to more effective implementation. The article places these and other issues in context and outlines a series of suggestions for future research to address to strengthen the SCP approach.
Keywords
Introduction
This article compares Beccaria’s and Situational Crime Prevention’s (SCP) claims across six dimensions. Beccaria is seen as the leading 18th-Century Classical School thinker and SCP is often portrayed as an influential contemporary framework that follows the Classical School’s approach. Recently, SCP has grown in popularity and a series of empirical studies have supported its claims (Guerette & Bowers, 2009; Meier & Miethe, 1993; Weisburd et al., 2006). SCP plays a key role in Great Britain and Scandinavian countries’ crime prevention policies, and it has influenced crime fighting strategies in the United States and other nations across the globe (Felson, 2008; Knepper, 2009; Scott, Eck, Knutsson, & Goldstein, 2008). Despite SCP’s successes, critics have questioned its theoretical underpinnings (Haywood, 2007). Indeed modest attention has been paid to the conceptual foundations of SCP, a point noted over 15 years ago in one of the few volumes to engage SCP’s theoretical underpinnings (Newman, Clarke, & Shoham, 1997).
This study extends Newman and Marongui’s (1997; Marongiu & Newman, 1997) study and compares SCP to Beccaria’s work. The comparison uncovered similarities as well as important differences between the two frameworks, including that SCP’s underlying theoretical orientation is more developed than Beccaria’s approach. The paucity of attention given to the theoretical foundations of SCP has possibly contributed to its oversimplification in mainstream criminology which has sometimes portrayed it as only extending Beccaria’s punishment ideas. In his critique of the criminal law and the legal system, Beccaria never questioned the belief that punishment could be used to deter individuals from committing crime. In contrast, SCP mostly ignores punishment because it is too far removed from crime scenes to influence offender behavior. Nor does it see deterrence emanating from formal punishment as the most effective technique to prevent crime.
These differences are overlooked by many criminologists. Akers and Sellers’s (2009; see also Vold, Bernard, & Snipes, 2002, pp. 203–205) leading criminology theory text, for example, fails to note SCP’s rejection of punishment generally, and prisons specifically, as a mechanism to reduce crime as well as its recent extension to “soft” crime-reduction strategies (as recounted below). The characterization of SCP as just a modern version of Beccaria’s punishment and deterrence arguments ignores the intellectual ferment within SCP (Cornish & Clarke, 2003; Cullen, 2011; Ekblom & Tilley, 2008; Newman, 2012).
Former American Society of Criminology President Robert J. Bursik (2009) recently lamented criminology’s tendency to ignore earlier works. He argued that this practice resulted in certain contemporary arguments being viewed as novel, even though they were not. The discipline thus misses out on the collective body of earlier knowledge that could contextualize contemporary arguments and studies. The situation with Beccaria and SCP is slightly different. The field has tended to simplify the contemporary SCP approach (Clarke, 2012; Cozens, 2008: 166; Felson, 2008). The result is similar to Bursik’s (2009) critique because criminology’s failure to consider SCP’s novel arguments and extensions of Beccaria’s ideas harms the discipline’s growth.
Relatedly, despite SCP’s more developed theoretical model, this study’s comparison of it to Becarria’s ideas also uncovered ambiguities in the SCP framework that could be elaborated upon to strengthen its underlying theoretical model. For example, SCP (like the Classical School) is usually differentiated from positivistic approaches in its assumption of offender agency and rationality (Akers & Sellers, 2009; Clarke & Cornish, 1985; Vold et al., 2002). This article’s analysis, however, demonstrates that SCP does not assume offender agency in all contexts and in fact many SCP interventions could also be explained in positivistic terms. It is argued that not enough has been made of this issue in the SCP and rational choice perspective literature. The analysis also indicates that it is not always clear which causal mechanisms underlie each of SCP’s 25 techniques of crime prevention. SCP theorists must focus more directly on the relationship between the various mechanisms used to reduce crime and each of the 25 techniques. Clarifying the precise causal mechanism of each technique could lead to more effective implementation of crime prevention strategies.
The article unfolds in this way. It first outlines Beccaria’s views that have the most relevance for the current neoclassical approaches. The article then discusses SCP and its underlying rational choice theory framework. Next, Beccaria’s views and SCP’s assumptions are compared across six dimensions that include “normalization” of the offender, offender agency and rationality, utilitarianism and crime reduction, the mechanisms used to reduce crime, whether crime-reduction strategies should be implemented distally or situationally, and who—that is, which entities—should be used to reduce crime. The article concludes by discussing ambiguities in the SCP framework and outlines a number of issues that could be addressed by future research to strengthen the SCP approach.
Beccaria and the Classical School
Beccaria’s (1764) On Crimes and Punishments is seen as the seminal Classical School text that helped create the academic discipline of criminology and criminal justice (Beirne, 1991; Newman, 1997). The enlightenment-influenced Classical School reform movement became the leading criminology approach in the late 1700s and early 1800s. Many countries implemented the Classical School’s ideas and until today many legal systems (e.g., the United States and some other nations) are based upon it.
The Classical School emerged in response to views prevalent during the middle ages that stressed obedience to monarchies and the church. These views argued for supernatural explanations for how the world operated and saw criminals as influenced by such forces. In contrast, the subsequent enlightenment embraced reason and objective scientific inquiry to make sense of the natural world (Beccaria, 1764; Newman & Marongiu, 2009). The scientific approach, it was argued, uncovered patterns of human behavior that could be used to craft policies to advance society. Beccaria (1764) relied on these ideas to call for the scientific study of crime. While his arguments were at times unclear and inconsistent (Newman & Marongiu, 1990, 2009), he called for tempering the use of some harsh physical punishments (e.g., quartering and other mutilations of the body) then used by European monarchies (Newman, 1985).
Similar to Hobbes and others, Becarria (1764) endorsed the “social contract” theory to explain society’s birth. 1 This framework contends that before societies were formed, people lived “naturally.” In this “state of nature,” people had no limits placed upon them and acted to further their own desires and interests. Since such a situation inevitably led to conflict (i.e., people’s interests and desires were destined to clash), a mechanism was necessary to ensure order. The State—government—emerged to prevent chaos and protect individuals from death or injury from others. Social contract theory argued that individuals freely gave up a portion of their liberty to the government. In exchange, the government regulated behavior through the creation of laws that individuals were required to obey. All individuals in society were guaranteed safety by the government that upheld the law and maintained social order.
Important for this article are Beccaria’s (1764) assumptions that undergirded the beliefs just listed. First, Beccaria assumed that individuals were naturally inclined to place their own interests first and seek out what pleases them, while avoiding unpleasant situations. The significance of this point is that it “normalizes” criminal offenders. Since most crime is committed to further an individual’s desires, there is no need to explain where the motivation to commit crime originates. 2 It is natural to further ones’ interests and often this can be accomplished through offending. The offender is not viewed as evil or different. This view separated Beccaria and the Classical School from positivistic—especially biological and psychological—perspectives that highlight individual characteristics that distinguish offenders from others.
Second, people are said to have “agency,” the ability to control their behaviors and to make rational choices. Individuals evaluate the situations they encounter and consider the benefits and costs of potential behaviors before committing them. Most people choose to commit acts that will benefit them the most. Since individuals have agency, they are responsible for their actions and if they offend the state has the right to punish them.
Third, and perhaps most importantly, Beccaria’s (1764) focus was limited to punishment and the formal criminal justice system (CJS). Beccaria examined the various stages of the CJS like the criminal trial, and its determination of the offender’s innocence or guilt, and the subsequent punishment stage. Beccaria wanted to ensure that punishment was only used against the guilty (as decided by a court of law). As a deterrence proponent, he argued that the CJS should use punishment to reduce crime in the future. These views were consistent with Beccaria’s utilitarian beliefs that sought to maximize the public benefit by achieving the greatest amount of good for the most people (Newman, 1997; Newman & Margongiu, 1997). Since individuals rationally seek to avoid pain and maximize pleasure, a system that rewards conformity and provides costs (i.e., painful punishments) for law violations will result in most persons obeying the law. The mechanism used to achieve this conformity is fear. Beccaria maintained that individuals will control themselves and obey laws when they calculated that the potential costs—punishments—of offending outweigh any possible benefits to them. In sum, Beccaria (1764) maintained that governments could use individuals’ fear of punishments to keep them obedient.
Deterrence is achieved by making sure the implementation of punishment is certain, severe, and swift and then publicized to the general public. Beccaria (1764) argued that punishments that were more certain (i.e., the perpetrator’s apprehension is more likely), swift (little time passed between apprehension of the offender and the punishment’s implementation), and severe (the magnitude of the punishment was high) led to higher costs. It appears that the certainty of apprehension can be achieved in a couple of ways. One possibility is to increase the likelihood that the offender will be apprehended at the crime scene or immediately after the offense’s commission. Beccaria’s colleague Bentham, for instance, famously called for the creation of Panopticon, an open air prison designed for around-the-clock surveillance of inmates by guards and the superintendent (Marongiu & Newman, 1997). While Bentham’s intention was humanitarian, the Panopticon’s constant surveillance of inmates increased the likelihood that a transgression could immediately be identified. A second possibility is that the certainty of apprehension can be increased by using reactive strategies that increase the likelihood of arrest well after (such as weeks or months) a crime’s commission. The certainty of punishment was thought to be most effective in deterring offenders. Publicizing these increased certainty, severity, and swiftness costs increased fear in potential offenders and led to most individuals obeying the law. Indeed, if the punishment scheme could be devised just right so that perceived costs always outweighed benefits, crime could—in theory—be eliminated.
Fourth, Beccaria (1764) also realized that if punishment’s sole goal was to achieve conformity, the result could be severe sanctions (e.g., life imprisonment) for minor offenses (e.g., jaywalking). To counter this common critique of deterrence philosophy (Newman, 1985), Beccaria relied upon retributive arguments (Newman & Marongiu, 2009). He contended that punishments had to match—be proportionate with—the harm caused and not be excessively harsh or lenient. Finally, although not a major focus of his book, Beccaria (1764) implied that social circumstances played a role in creating crime and that improving these conditions would prevent crime too.
The Classical School declined in popularity in the early 1800s. Criminology instead embraced positivism which assumed that most offenders’ agency and ability to freely make choices was constrained by factors beyond their control. At first, these factors were thought to be biological or psychological in nature. Subsequently, it was assumed that social factors—both structural and cultural—had the biggest impact on offending. Since then, positivistic approaches have dominated criminology and continue to be the leading approaches in explaining the etiology of offending.
SCP and its Rational Choice Perspective
In the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, SCP and its accompanying rational choice perspective (Clarke, 1967; Clarke & Cornish, 1985; Cornish & Clarke, 1986), along with other neoclassical approaches such as economically based criminology choice models (Becker, 1968), modern deterrence models (Apel & Nagin, 2010), routine activities theory (Cohen & Felson, 1979; Felson, 2008), and crime pattern theory (Brantingham & Brantingham, 1993) emerged in criminology. 3 SCP is a practical, policy-oriented approach whose goal is to reduce crime in the future (Clarke, 1980). 4 It is unconcerned with esoteric matters or grand initiatives to transform society (Freilich & Newman, 2015; Tilley, 2004). This is why SCP, at least in the field of criminology, is uniquely concerned with how offenders successfully commit their crimes. Understanding how the offender carries out the crime can be used to craft interventions to prevent offending. The rest of criminology is focused on why perpetrators offend, what Clarke (2004) and others refer to as the dispositional bias.
Unlike other criminology frameworks, SCP’s focus on crime reduction has led to partnerships between academics, police and practitioners where SCP principles have been used to guide practice (see e.g. Braga & Kennedy, 2012; Ratcliffe, 2008; Scott & Goldsten, 2012). SCP is associated with problem-oriented policing, currently a leading policing strategy. Problem-oriented policing calls for focusing on specific problems to devise proactive strategies to eliminate them (Goldstein, 2001). SCP proponents have also worked with private industry to design products, based upon the principles of Design against Crime (DAC), that are resistant to theft and other crimes (Ekblom, 2008, 2012).
Ron Clarke, the founder of SCP, became interested in preventing illegal and antisocial acts while studying for his PhD in cognitive psychology in the 1960s (Freilich & Natarajan, 2009). Clarke’s doctoral dissertation investigated boys who ran away from borstal school. Unlike absconding studies that focused on individual characteristics, Clarke’s (1967) work stressed the importance of situational attributes. Longer periods of darkness and shorter days provided more opportunities to abscond. Subsequently, Clarke and his colleagues (Mayhew, Clarke, Hough, & Sturman, 1976) set forth a detailed framework that introduced SCP and called for removing opportunities to prevent crime (Clarke, 2012).
SCP calls for examining specific crime types (or problems) to identify the situational characteristics that allow the perpetrator to successfully complete the crime. A corollary of this point is that SCP sees the criminal law as too removed from potential crime scenes to influence situational decisions. SCP also has little to say about the criminal trial and its innocence versus guilt determination. Instead, SCP is focused on the criminal event. Its detailed situational analysis advocates use of the “script” method (Cornish, 1994) to identify possible intervention points to remove the identified opportunities. Cornish and Clarke (2002, p. 47) explain that “crime [scripts]…involve such chains of decisions and actions, separable into interdependent stages, involving the attainment of sub-goals that serve the overall goals of the crime.” Once the opportunities and possible intervention points are identified, the next step is to devise strategies to prevent the crime. This is accomplished by reviewing the empirical literature to identify successful interventions that were used to combat similar problems (Clarke & Eck, 2005) and the innovative crafting of new strategies (Eck, 2002a, 2002b; Ekblom, 2012). Invariably, a series of potential crime-reduction strategies are identified. It is argued that communities should choose the technique they are most comfortable with after balancing public safety, individual rights, community concerns, and other factors (Felson & Clarke, 1997).
As SCP’s popularity and its use has increased, a growing number of strategies have been identified and implemented that have in fact reduced crime (Clarke, 1997; Guerette & Bowers, 2009; Weisburd et al., 2009). There are currently five general strategies encompassing 25 techniques to reduce crime. The techniques include both “hard” and soft interventions. Hard interventions include making it impossible or more difficult for the crime to be committed and alert potential perpetrators that they are likely to be apprehended if they transgress. Soft interventions reduce situational prompts/cues that increase a person’s motivation to commit a crime during specific types of events (Cornish and Clarke, 2003; Freilich & Chermak, 2009; Wortley, 2008).
As described by Newman and Freilich (2012; Freilich & Newman, 2014), SCP is dynamic and encourages innovation, which is why the types of interventions have evolved and increased over the years. Originally, Clarke and Mayhew (1980) set forth eight opportunity-reducing strategies. SCP then relied upon routine activities (Cohen & Felson, 1979; Felson, 2008) and defensible space perspectives (Poyner & Webb, 1991) to increase the number of strategies to 12 organized in three categories of increasing the effort, increasing the risks, and reducing the rewards of offending (Clarke, 1992). A fourth column (Clarke & Homel, 1997), removing excuses, was subsequently added to prevent mundane nonviolent crimes (like speeding) that are commonly committed by otherwise law-abiding citizens. A fifth column, reducing provocation, was recently added, which increased the number of techniques to 25 (Cornish and Clarke, 2003). The fourth and fifth columns are sometimes referred to as soft SCP and respond to Wortley’s (1997, 2002) critique that certain situations increase a person’s motivation to commit a crime. A complete and interactive listing of the well-known 25 techniques is available at http://www.popcenter.org/25techniques/.
Interestingly, although SCP was set forth in the 1970s, and Clarke had already highlighted the importance of situational factors a decade before, the rational choice perspective was not introduced until the 1980s (Clarke & Cornish, 1985; Cornish & Clarke, 1986). In other words, the rational choice perspective was created after SCP’s emergence. This sequence makes sense since etiological theorizing takes second place to SCP’s primary focus to reduce crime. Consistent with this focus, rational choice theory has been described by its founders as a theory for practice 5 (Cornish & Clarke, 2008, p. 37). Rational choice’s contributions to SCP are that it highlights agency and offender decision making to distinguish it from the positivistic models that still dominate criminology. A related point is that the environment can be modified to prevent offenders from successfully carrying out their intentions to commit crime 6 (Newman & Freilich, 2012).
Comparison of SCP and Beccaria
Normalization of the offender
Beccaria viewed offenders and nonoffenders similarly. He saw individuals as rational actors who possess agency and maximize their pleasure by avoiding costs while obtaining benefits. All decisions—be it to offend or conform—are made for the same reasons and offenders therefore did not differ from each other or conformists. For a long time, all classical-oriented approaches, including SCP, held to this assumption. Indeed, this view separated the Classical School and SCP from many positivistic models that stressed differences between offenders and others. Recently though SCP may have moved slightly away from this key claim.
As a result of Wortley’s (1998, 2001, 2008) SCP critique that offenders not only took advantage of situational opportunities to commit crime but that certain event characteristics created, or increased, an individual’s motivation to offend, Cornish and Clarke (2003) crafted a reply. This reply concluded that offenders could be broken into three categories—mundane, provoked, and predatory. This typology highlighted distinctions among offenders and between offenders and nonoffenders. Cornish and Clarke (2003, p. 57), for example, describe predatory offenders as “antisocial, mostly free from moral scruples, and committed to particular types of crime as simply the most satisfactory means to achieve their goal.”
Wortley (2008) noted that this typology was “a new development in environmental criminology…[since] individual differences have generally played little role in…[its] analysis of crime. The offender has been treated as a constant.” Newman and Freilich (2012, p. 216) similarly concluded that it was a significant development because it highlighted “individual differences, the hall-mark of dispositional approaches.” The typology’s description of predatory offenders just quoted seemingly differentiates them from noncriminals. This differs from Beccaria’s (1764) characterizations that normalized the offender and saw him or her as no different than others. Further, Cornish and Clarke’s arguments here differed from their other writings. For example, five years later, they argued that “instead of viewing criminal behavior as the outcome of stable criminal motivations, [they] view[ed] the desires, preferences, and motives of offenders and potential offenders as similar to those of the rest of us” (Cornish & Clarke, 2008, p. 21; see also Felson, 2008, p. 75; Newman, 1997, p. 16). It is for this reason that this difference is only tentatively noted. 7
Offender rationality and agency
Beccaria and SCP assume that (most) individuals are rational actors who possess agency and seek to maximize their pleasure while avoiding pain and costly actions. Beccaria (1764) did not, however, unpack this concept of rationality. SCP provides more detail on how it conceives rationality. It argues that offenders possess limited or bounded rationality and operationalizes it as subjective according to the offender’s perspective but taking into account objective elements 8 (Cornish & Clarke, 2008; Newman, 1997, pp. 14–15). According to the concept of limited rationality, offenders make decisions that they think—perhaps incorrectly—will benefit them. Such rational but faulty decision making occurs due to the harried circumstances of the criminal event and the resulting incorrect information that offenders at times rely upon (Cornish & Clarke, 2008; Newman, 1997).
An understanding of rationality and agency is important since Beccaria’s and some of SCP’s crime-reduction strategies (discussed below) are based on the assumption that offenders possess these attributes. Beccaria claimed that increasing the certainty of apprehension (and thus the likelihood of receiving punishment) and the severity of punishment would reduce offending. Beccaria assumed that because individuals want to avoid negative outcomes, they will choose to conform to avoid the costs of punishment. Similarly, hard SCP interventions that increase the likelihood of apprehension (e.g., closed-circuit television [CCTV] camera) or that make it more difficult for the crime to be committed (such as building a fence around a parking lot so that offenders must scale it to gain entry) are based upon the assumption that persons will choose to conform because these increased costs no longer make it “worthwhile” to commit the crime.
Significantly though, not all hard SCP techniques are based upon this assumption of offender rationality or agency. Certain hard SCP strategies, the traditional version of SCP set forth in the 1970s, seek to thwart the offender by making it impossible for the crime to be committed no matter what the motivation, mind-set, or emotions of the offender (Cornish & Clarke, 2008, p. 41). To some extent, this is similar to punishment’s incapacitation philosophy. But, SCP’s target hardening does not incapacitate the offender (Newman, 1985); rather it immobilizes or makes inaccessible the offender’s intended target or victim!
Newman and Freilich (2012, p. 216) explain that “originally interventions were applied to the situational environment without regard to offender motivation or behavior. For example, the construction of physical barriers has nothing to do with the internal psychology of offenders. If it works, it works and we know from countless studies that such hardening techniques work.” Rational choice theory, in other words, is not needed to support this aspect of SCP. An effective hardening of the target would just as easily thwart a (legally insane) offender acting under an irresistible impulse (who did not possess agency), as it would a perfectly rational hedonistic offender who did possess agency and chose to try to commit the offense.
SCP’s recently developed soft approaches also do not rely upon offender rationality or agency to reduce crime. Soft SCP approaches remove environmental cues or prompts that create, or increase, an individual’s motivation to commit crime. Wortley’s (1997, 2008) critique that called for “soft approaches” turned to the psychological literature. He identified research findings that, for instance, found that publicly displayed weapons (e.g., by a police officer or private security guard) could cause some individuals to become violent. The assumption is that certain individuals have dispositions that could be tapped into action by environmental stimuli (such as the visible gun). Soft SCP thus endorses interventions that eliminate these cues and prompts. In terms of the weapon example, a soft SCP policy would ensure that in certain circumstances a police officer’s weapon not be publicly displayed. The take away from this illustration is that offender agency and rationality are not assumed by soft SCP (Newman & Freilich, 2012).
Thus, unlike Beccaria’s views that mostly assumed offender agency and rationality, both hard and SCP do not make this assumption in all contexts. The classical and positivist debate about whether most offenders possess agency is irrelevant for SCP (Wortley, 2014). Indeed, many SCP interventions could be explained in positivistic terms. Behaviorism, for example, is positivistic but leads to many of the same conclusions about prevention as does SCP and the rational choice perspective. It appears that many SCP proponents are intentionally opaque on the issue of perpetrator motivation because the issue of offender agency is immaterial to their primary (pragmatic) concern of crime reduction (Newman & Freilich, 2012; Wilcox, Land, & Hunt, 2002, Wortley, 2014).
Crime reduction and other goals
Both Beccaria’s views and SCP’s arguments are forward-looking utilitarian models designed to promote the public good (Marongiu & Newman, 1997). Since both perspectives assume that crime undermines society and the public good, they embrace the goal of reducing crime. Newman (1997) notes that the Classical School and SCP are unique in this regard because many other criminology positivistic theories do not take a stand for or against crime so as not to undermine their scientific neutrality. The assumptions made by both SCP and Beccaria could also be classified as reformist approaches that embrace scientific principles to achieve their goals and seek to temper harsh punishments of their times (Marongiu & Newman, 1997). Beccaria (1764), although at times ambivalent and unclear in his writings, criticized punishments that included mutilations of the body as too harsh (Newman & Marongiu, 1990, 2009). And as described below, SCP proponents have questioned the increased use of prisons that also usually include the unsanctioned collateral damages of physical violations of offenders to reduce crime (Knepper, 2007; Newman, 1983, 1985).
Previously, we highlighted the dangers inherent in utilitarianism that could lead to the implementation of excessively harsh interventions to reduce offending (Marongiu & Newman, 1997). Critics have been especially harsh on SCP, arguing that its interventions have led to a fortress society or a culture of control (Garland, 2002; Haywood, 2007). SCP proponents and Beccaria have both taken steps to guard against this possibility. Beccaria “borrowed” from retributive philosophies to argue that punishments had to match the crimes committed and could not be overly harsh or lenient (Newman, 1985; Newman & Marongui, 2009). SCP proponents have similarly noted that a range of possible interventions are available to reduce most crime problems. Communities are urged to select the crime-reduction strategy they are most comfortable with after balancing community concerns, individual rights, and other factors. Both the burden of interventions and their benefits and crime reduction are to be equitably distributed. Scott, Eck, Knutsson, and Goldstein (2008, p. 227) explicate that the SCP influenced problem-oriented policing approach “[calls] for the response that equitably apportions the burdens placed upon various people and groups for addressing the problem, as well as equitably apportioning the benefits of the new responses to the problem” (see also Clarke, 2008, pp. 190–193; Felson & Clarke, 1997). Thus, the selected intervention will not be overly harsh and will be among the most reasonable of the available choices.
Both perspectives have also been criticized for ignoring the presumed root causes of crime such as poverty (Haywood, 2007; Taylor, Walter, & Young, 1973). Beccaria implied that impoverished social conditions could create crime. SCP similarly includes distal factors such as poverty in its involvement model that explains why an individual could be open to offending. Clarke has also noted that because such problems, as history has shown, are almost impossible to correct, it makes more sense to focus on the situational aspects that have been effective in reducing crime (Clarke, 1980, 2004; Newman, 1997). It has also been argued that there is a division of labor where SCP focuses on the crime event while the other criminological frameworks continue to study distal factors (Clarke, 2008; Freilich & Newman, 2009; Knepper, 2009).
While SCP’s overriding goal is crime reduction, Beccaria primarily sought to reform the criminal law and punishment and crime reduction was just one goal among his aims. Importantly, Beccaria implied that crime could not only be reduced but eliminated if just the right formula of costs/punishments could be found through the legal system. SCP proponents are less ambitious and assume that crime as a whole cannot be eliminated. While specific crime problems can be reduced or even eliminated, SCP concludes that there is a never-ending supply of possible offenders. Over time, offenders adapt and try new strategies to overcome successful crime-reduction interventions (Clarke, 2008, pp. 189–190; Clarke & Newman, 2006). This is why SCP proponents are usually so focused on smaller piecemeal problems and interventions. They argue that there is usually a never ending cycle of crime problems emerging, and successful interventions that reduce the crime problem, followed by offenders eventually adapting and innovatively trying new strategies (that begin the cycle anew). Ekblom (2008, p. 213) explains that “crime prevention is a kind of arms race…between crime preventers and adaptive offenders who innovate, exploit, change, and enjoy the obsolescence of familiar crime prevention methods” (see also Knepper, 2007; Tilley, 2004).
How to reduce crime (mechanisms used to reduce crime)?
The discussion until now has in passing mentioned various techniques used by Beccaria and SCP to reduce crime. It is important to focus directly on this point to illustrate that while SCP proponents rely on Beccaria’s mechanisms to reduce crime, they also use additional ones. Beccaria (1764) endorsed deterrence principles that called for increasing punishment’s certainty, severity, swiftness, and publicizing these increased costs. Individuals contemplating crime would fear incurring these increased costs and would choose to conform.
SCP proponents also rely upon these four mechanisms. As described (previously and subsequently) some SCP techniques, such as CCTV cameras, consistent with Beccaria’s certainty claims, increase the likelihood of the perpetrator’s apprehension. Other SCP strategies somewhat converge with Beccaria’s severity arguments. Beccaria called for increasing the magnitude of punishment. SCP proponents, as described below, eschew the use of formal punishment and instead rely upon situational interventions. Some of these interventions make it more difficult for the crime to be committed. This is somewhat consistent with Beccaria’s severity of punishment claims in that both raise the costs of crime commission to the offender. Although not widely acknowledged, SCP strategies also converge with Beccaria’s swiftness arguments that for punishment to deter, it should immediately follow the crime. The subsequent section illustrates that SCP calls for interventions that impact the offender at the potential crime scene to influence the decision of whether or not to offend. SCP recognizes that interventions and offender decisions must converge. Interventions that are temporally distant from crime scenes are usually (though not always) ineffective. In this sense, SCP is faithful to Beccaria’s call for crime and punishment (or in SCP’s case the intervention) to go together.
Both SCP proponents and Beccaria see a role for publicity to reduce crime. Beccaria (1764) called for publicizing punishments to make individuals aware of the increased certainty, severity, and swiftness of punishment. It was argued that this would “generally” deter all would-be offenders. SCP proponents similarly rely upon publicity to achieve crime reductions. Bowers and Johnson (2005) explain that publicity can be used to educate the public to take actions that raise the costs of offending to a potential perpetrator by increasing their risk of apprehension. Publicity can also be used to influence the offender’s perceptions of the difficulty/risks of committing a crime and their likelihood of being caught. In addition, publicity could be used to both educate the public to take actions to make them less vulnerable to victimization (Freilich & Chermak, 2013) and reassure them to reduce the fear of crime.
Publicity plays a role in both the diffusion of benefits (Clarke &Weisburd, 1994) and anticipatory benefits (Smith, Clarke, & Pease, 2002) that have resulted from certain SCP interventions. Diffusion of benefits refers to cases where an SCP intervention is implemented in a location, and a crime reduction also occurs in nearby areas that have not received the intervention. Anticipatory benefits refer to a crime reduction that occurs in an area while a proposed intervention is discussed but before it is implemented. In both cases, publicity is the mechanism that results in crime reduction. It is thought that offenders hear about these proposed interventions and mistakenly (but consistent with limited/bounded rationality) conclude that it has already been implemented in their area. The offenders thus decide to conform (Bowers & Johnson, 2005).
The discussion above pointed out that SCP proponents rely upon additional mechanisms to reduce crime. SCP theorists endorse interventions that thwart the intended crime by making it impossible to commit no matter what the offender’s motivation or mind-set is. SCP proponents also seek to remove cues and prompts that can create or increase an individual’s motivation to offend at the criminal event. In addition, SCP theorists recognize that people’s emotions and beliefs can sometimes be used to prevent offending. Some interventions seek to manipulate a person’s guilt (Wortley, 1996) or political ideology (Freilich & Chermak, 2009) during certain situations to prevent the commission of crime. This is a key point. This acknowledgment that an individual’s emotions or political beliefs could play a limited role in helping to craft interventions at the crime scene to reduce crime is quite different from positivistic models that stress the distal importance of guilt or morality in explaining the etiology of offending (see, e.g., Wikstrom, 2009).
When to intervene (distal vs. situational) to reduce crime?
Beccaria’s certainty of punishment claims anticipated SCP interventions (e.g. the use of CCTV cameras, the public deployment of police officers, and environmental design initiatives to increase surveillance) that alert individuals that if they offend they are likely to be immediately apprehended (Cozens, 2008; Jeffrey & Zahm, 1993). As a result, persons who are aware of these interventions will decide not to offend. SCP proponents agree with Beccaria, in other words, that proactive measures implemented at a crime scene to alert would-be offenders that they are likely to be immediately arrested if they transgress will deter them from offending. SCP theorists part ways from Beccaria, however, in that reactive police actions that increase the certainty of apprehension long after the crime (such as police tactics that solve most burglaries within a year and achieve a 90% clearance rate) are thought to be too far removed from potential crime scenes to influence individuals.
SCP proponents similarly take issue with Beccaria’s reliance upon the criminal law and the implementation of severe punishment at the conclusion of criminal trials to increase costs and fear in potential offenders to reduce crime (Ekblom, 2007; Newman & Clarke, 2003, p. 9). SCP theorists mostly concentrate on interventions that influence crime scenes. They claim that laws and punishment are too distant a threat to influence most offenders’ decision making during the crime event (Cornish & Clarke, 1986, 2008; Felson, 2008; Tilley, 2004). It is only possible to successfully use an offender’s fear of increased costs (Braga & Kennedy, 2012; Cusson, 1993), other emotions such as guilt (Clarke & Homel, 1997; Wortley, 1996), or their ideological beliefs (Freilich & Chermak, 2009) to deter them from committing crime if they are invoked situationally.
While such claims are familiar to SCP proponents, this difference is missed by many criminologists. SCP and its rational choice arguments (Cornish and Clarke’s, 1986, 2008) have been cited for punishment/deterrence claims that are in fact not part of their argument (Bartholomew, 2012). Pratt’s (2008) essay in Criminology and Public Policy, the discipline’s leading policy journal, for instance, was titled “rational choice theory, crime control policy and criminological relevance.” The essay highlighted that “One significant development in rational choice theory…involved efforts by scholars to uncover the conditions under which sanctions [italics added] may be effective in deterring criminal behavior.” Pratt like other criminologists only referred to the more general rational choice traditions from economics and sociology. Pratt did not acknowledge that the law’s impact on offenders play no role in the rational choice theory (associated with SCP) set forth by Clarke and Cornish (1985; Cornish & Clarke, 1986). Similarly, Akers and Sellers, (2009, p. 45) leading criminological textbook after stating that most “general and specific rational choice models…are basically expansions of deterrence theory” cites to a series of works including volumes by Cornish and Clarke (1986) and Newman, Clarke, and Shoham (1997).
Of course, these books specifically note SCP’s rejection of punishment as an effective mechanism to reduce crime. In addition, although certain SCP critics (Haywood, 2007) characterize it as a conservative approach, SCP has rejected one of the political rights’ most controversial criminological positions, the use of prisons and increased incarceration to reduce crime through deterrence and incapacitation mechanisms. SCP maintains that such strategies are ineffective and a waste of resources because there is an endless supply of offenders, terrorists, and all other deviants (Clarke & Newman, 2006; Newman, 1997). The effective response, according to SCP, is to eschew many punishments as a strategy for reducing crime and instead concentrate on devising situational measures to reduce the opportunities that allow crime to occur.
Who reduces crime and at what level?
Another difference between the two frameworks is that SCP is more encompassing in its collaborations with societal institutions to reduce crime. Both SCP and Beccaria have had a significant impact on the CJS, most prominently the police and courts. Many Western CJSs are based upon the Classical School and rely upon Beccaria’s ideas. Beccaria’s conclusions about increasing the certainty of punishment assumes a major role for the police and other agencies tasked with apprehending offenders (for trial, and then punishment if convicted). SCP and problem-oriented policing proponents similarly work closely together with law enforcement to devise proactive solutions to reduce or eliminate specific crime problems.
Beccaria and SCP also anticipate a role for the media and similar entities. The media’s reporting (i.e., publicizing) of punishment according to Beccaria should result in general deterrence. Similarly, according to SCP proponents publicizing interventions should alert offenders about increased costs and influence the general public to take actions versus crime and reduce their own vulnerability as well as help create the diffusion of benefits and anticipatory benefits just discussed. One example includes publicizing honey-spot websites to deter child pornographers who use the Internet (Wortley, 2014). Both perspectives also recognize that in addition to the media, word of mouth could be used to achieve these results (Bowers & Johnson, 2005).
Unlike Beccaria who mostly limited his focus to the legal and CJSs, SCP proponents in addition to working with these agencies (Braga & Kennedy, 2012; Eck & Madensen, 2012; Wagers, Sousa, & Kelling, 2008) also collaborate with corporations, private entities, and other nongovernmental organizations (Eck, 2002b; Ekblom, 2008, 2012) to reduce crime. We return to this point in the discussion section below. SCP is also more wide-ranging in its focus, especially through individual lifestyle and routine activities theories, on crime victims (Felson, 2008) who were mostly ignored by Beccaria. Clarke and other SCP proponents played leading roles in creating systematic surveys of crime victims and in studying repeat victimization to gather information to be used for crime prevention strategies (Cozens, 2008; Mayhew & Hough, 2012; Pease, 1998). Further, SCP’s model recognizes the different stages to the making of a criminal event (i.e., involvement, and event decisions) and is thus more complex. Beccaria did not acknowledge this distinction and proposed the same explanation for each decision made by the offender.
Another difference relates to how crime-reduction strategies are implemented. Beccaria was more grandiose- and macrolevel—in both respects. Beccaria relied upon the criminal law to respond to whole categories of crime simultaneously. For example, according to Beccaria and many proponents of the CJS still today, the law and punishment against robbery should deter all potential robberies even though robbery situations may vary from one another. The law is used in overarching way. Or, as Bentham suggested, a series of detailed laws anticipating an almost infinite categories of crimes and situations must be implemented. Newman and Marongiu (1997, p. 142) noted though such a legal system becomes unwieldy and impossible to implement because it assumes “a level of specificity in the law that it does not and can never have, except under the most unusual circumstances.”
On the other hand, one consistent theme of SCP and problem-oriented policing has been that crime scenes—even the same crime type—differ. Robberies of bodegas in industrial areas of the city at night could be quite different to robberies of convenience stores in the suburbs during daytime hours (Clarke, 2008; Cornish & Clarke, 2008). SCP thus often calls for interventions to be as specific as possible and to “drill down” to smaller crime problems. Knepper (2007, p. 36; see also Eck & Madensen, 2012) explains that SCP should be used for problems that are “suitable for piecemeal experiments to alleviate them.” In this sense, SCP is easier to implement than the Classical School.
Although SCP highlights a piecemeal approach, some of the most successful crime prevention strategies have actually been large-scale interventions that greatly reduce the problem everywhere. One prominent example was the elimination of carbon monoxide from the public gas supply in Great Britain that resulted in a dramatic decline in the number of suicides. Intriguingly though, these large-scale interventions are sometimes instituted for non-SCP reasons. Freilich and Newman (2015, p. 8) explain that SCP continues to benefit from “interventions that were implemented for other reasons, but also reduced crime or other harmful problems. Sometimes these interventions are subsequently used elsewhere to intentionally reduce crime and other problems.”
In addition, unlike Beccaria’s reliance on a more macrolevel intervention of a single law, or class of laws, SCP argues that a series of likely varying interventions implemented in different places by different entities would usually be needed to reduce all robberies. One way of viewing the distinction is that Beccaria just relies upon the law to reduce crime, while SCP’s 25 strategies lead to a multitude of possible interventions to reduce each specific crime problem. A comparison of the two approaches for a single crime problem will usually result in Beccaria’s single intervention (the law) compared to a series of SCP strategies that likely vary across locations with similar crime problems. 9
Finally, although both approaches have been criticized as ineffective because they have failed to reduce crime, this critique misses the mark where SCP is concerned. A growing number of studies have shown that SCP interventions almost always influence offenders (Freilich & Newman, 2014). SCP interventions in fact have consistently been found to reduce crime. Even if displacement (i.e., crime is not eliminated because thwarted offenders respond by committing the same crime in a different location, at a different time, or by selecting a different target, or employing a different modus operandi, or choosing to commit a different crime or are replaced by another offender) occurs, it is usually less than the original crime reduction (Guerette & Bowers, 2009). Further, as noted SCP interventions often have positive spillover effects through the diffusion of benefits and anticipatory benefits that leads to crime reductions in locations beyond the target area (Guerette & Bowers, 2009; Freilich & Newman, 2014; Weisburd et al., 2006).
Discussion and Conclusion
This article compared the claims of SCP and Beccaria and identified a number of areas of agreement. Both perspectives question harsh penalties, embrace crime reduction as a goal, and view some individuals as possessing agency and rationality. The latter two points distinguish them from most other criminology theories that are not focused on crime reduction and downplay offenders’ rationality. Both approaches have also been criticized, sometimes unfairly, for ignoring the root causes of crime in society. Importantly though, the approaches differ in at least four important ways. The article concludes by placing these differences in context and outlining suggestions for future research.
First, Beccaria was concerned with punishment, the criminal law, and the CJS, while SCP mostly ignores the criminal trial and punishment. As a result, Beccaria relies upon the criminal law, and the (distally created) deterrence from punishment that SCP proponents have rejected as too far removed from the crime scene to influence individual behavior. In contrast, the SCP perspective embraces a wider range of strategies that are situationally invoked to prevent crime.
Beccaria’s punishment focus led him to argue against unbridled judicial discretion that resulted in overly harsh punishments. Beccaria’s views move the offender’s trial (and finding of guilt vs. innocence) to the forefront. As repeatedly noted, SCP’s social science approach has ignored this issue as irrelevant to its crime prevention mission. But, the difficulty in relying upon punishment and the criminal law to reduce crime has led legal scholars and advocates of the Classical School to seek other tools to fight crime. One strategy that has gained in popularity is the use of civil law and government regulations to reduce crime. SCP proponents have also recognized the effectiveness of civil abatement and regulatory mechanisms to reduce crime (Mazerolle & Roehl, 1998). While many of these initiatives are effective, they are a marked departure from Beccaria’s ideals. Government regulations and civil actions are not predicated upon a determination of offender guilt or innocence. Things have thus come a long way from Beccaria’s preoccupation with and notions of justice. Intriguingly, this evolution and increased reliance on civil law provides an opening for SCP advocates and legal scholars to collaborate and harness the increased use of regulations for crime prevention purposes.
Second, while Beccaria assumed that almost all offenders possessed agency and were rational actors, and SCP is normally categorized similarly, this article demonstrates that an assumption of offender agency is not necessary for SCP in all contexts. Many hard SCP strategies make it impossible for the offender to reach the victim or target regardless of whether the offender acts freely or as a result of an irresistible impulse. Soft SCP assumes that certain situational prompts or cues influence an offender by creating or increasing their motivation to commit crime. Here too an assumption of an offender’s agency or ability to choose is unnecessary. As noted, the classical and positivist debate about whether most offenders possess agency is irrelevant for SCP. Many SCP interventions could also be explained in positivistic terms. Behaviorism, for example, is positivistic but leads to many of the same conclusions about prevention as does SCP and the rational choice perspective (Wortley, 2014).
Most SCP proponents though have not engaged this issue. There are two possible reasons for this. SCP proponents may be interested in highlighting rationality and agency to distinguish their claims from positivistic criminological theories that downplay agency. It may be that SCP proponents are worried that engaging this issue will detract from their crime-reduction mission. It is hoped that SCP fully engages these intriguing theoretical questions while staying true to its practical crime-reducing goals.
One possibility is for SCP theorists to focus directly on the relationship between the various mechanisms used to reduce crime and each of SCP’s 25 techniques of crime prevention. At times, it is clear which mechanism underlies a specific technique, such as raising the costs of crime reliance upon deterrence’s severity principles, increasing the likelihood of arrest reliance upon deterrence’s certainty principles, or the removal of excuses use of guilt to reduce crime. But, this is not the case for all of the techniques. It could be that multiple mechanisms underlie the same technique. Clarifying the precise causal mechanism of each of the 25 techniques could lead to the more effective implementation of them.
Third, the two frameworks seem to diverge on whether perpetrators differ from each other and from noncriminals. Beccaria is known for “normalizing” the offender while SCP has recently, possibly, shifted in this regard. Future research must clarify this issue. SCP and Beccaria also part ways as to how crime-reduction strategies should be implemented and how effective they are seen in reducing crime. Beccaria was more grandiose in both respects. He relied upon the criminal law to impact an almost endless variety of situations and implied that if the punishment scheme was “just right” crime could be eliminated. SCP proponents usually endorse more piecemeal strategies and acknowledge that while crime can almost always be reduced it is impossible to eliminate.
As noted, SCP has also benefited from large-scale interventions that reduce the problem everywhere. Freilich and Newman (2015) explain that some of these interventions were implemented for non-SCP reasons and crime reduction was an added benefit that resulted. They used only one of SCP’s 25 techniques—harden targets—to develop a graded framework. This graded framework identifies both piecemeal interventions that only reduce a specific local problem (e.g., installing a CCTV camera to combat a local robbery problem) and large-scale responses that reduce the problem everywhere (e.g., the Great Britain example that resulted in a decline in suicide in the entire country).
Despite the promise that large-scale interventions may have for crime prevention, most SCP scholars have not engaged this issue. This is not surprising because many SCP supporters are suspicious of grand initiatives. SCP scholars should, however, increase their openness to macrolevel interventions because, as outlined above, the crime prevention benefits could be great. Future research should extend Freilich and Newman’s (2015) framework that only focused on the target-harden technique to SCP’s other 24 strategies. Such an analysis would use SCP’s techniques to identify not only piecemeal strategies but responses more distant from the immediate event to reduce the problem across society. This entails identifying the parties responsible for the problem and ensuring they implement the necessary strategies. (This last point is elaborated upon subsequently.) SCP proponents should also empirically evaluate Freilich and Newman’s (2015) micro-/macro-graded interventions framework and other macrolevel interventions.
Fourth, SCP proponents work with more social institutions to reduce crime, and its strategies are more effective than Beccaria’s deterrence model that only relies upon the CJS to achieve their shared goal of reducing crime. SCP proponents have collaborated with corporations to devise initiatives to reduce crime. This is exemplified by the DAC approach where academics, experts, and corporations collaborate to identify products physical characteristics that could be modified to make them less vulnerable to theft and other crimes. SCP scholars have similarly created the problem-oriented policing (POP) center which popularizes SCP ideas among law enforcement.
SCP scholars seek to change how the police and private industry perceive their missions. SCP scholars encourage the police to move away from solely relying upon reactive approaches like increasing arrest and clearance rates. Similarly, corporations are urged to stop seeing the police as the only party responsible for crime prevention. These two entities are instead encouraged to identify problems and devise preventive solutions to reduce crime. In both cases though, SCP proponents have encountered resistance. Some police departments’ are impervious to proactive SCP strategies that they view as “not real police work” and as “social work.” Meanwhile, corporations are often wary of the added costs that DAC may incur and may not see it as their responsibility.
Until now, SCP has largely focused on sharing/publicizing successful crime prevention initiatives. More attention could be devoted to publicizing strategies that result in an initially recalcitrant police department, corporation, or other entity embracing a proactive SCP strategy. DAC and the POP initiatives have seemingly progressed on separate parallel tracks. It could be that interventions that successfully influence a corporation to change its culture and behavior to adopt SCP strategies may have applicability to influencing a police department in the same way and vice versa. In other words, greater collaboration between DAC and POP initiatives to identify both successful interventions and strategies that transform organizational cultures from initially suspicious of the SCP approach to experimenting with it may pay useful crime-prevention dividends.
This article concludes by directly addressing the relationship between SCP and the CJS. This issue has been touched upon in passing but the precise relationship between the CJS and SCP remains vague. The goal here is to clarify this issue. SCP does not, of course, advocate the elimination of the CJS, but it does call for reducing its scope and modifying its mission. SCP also endorses reconfiguring the crime prevention responsibility beyond the government to include other entities. In short, SCP’s approach complements the CJS. Clarke (2005) explains that not only can SCP bolster the CJS but the reverse is also true.
As repeatedly noted, SCP argues that law enforcement must move beyond arresting perpetrators and a “take them all out” mind-set. Arresting perpetrators is insufficient because if the opportunity for crime remains, others will seize it and replace the arrested offenders. SCP similarly questions the efficacy of punishment and specifically imprisonment as tools to reduce crime. Since both incapacitation and deterrence are ineffective, the CJS’s mission should be reframed and the arrest and processing of offenders through the formal CJS reduced. 10
SCP instead calls for a proactive approach that identifies potential problems and then crafts interventions to prevent them. Importantly, SCP proponents see the CJS as just one part of this mission. In addition to the police, corporations (through DAC), the courts (through civil actions), other parts of government (through regulations, environmental and architectural design, crime prevention publicity campaigns, as well as pressure placed on corporations), individual citizens (through protective measures and other actions), and others are responsible for the crime prevention mission. Often the success of the crime prevention initiative is dependent upon these entities cooperating with each other (Clarke, 2005, pp. 218–219).
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.