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Course description

In recent years the effectiveness of the criminal justice system has come under sustained criticism. A key criticism of traditional criminal justice responses to crime involving police, courts and imprisonment is that they are mainly downstream responses, reacting after crime has occurred. This has led policy makers, criminologists and criminal justice practitioners to develop schemes that involve central and local authorities working together to identify and address causes of offending. Such approaches to crime control emphasise upstream responses; that is policy responses that aim to prevent crime before they become downstream problems requiring responses by the criminal justice system. Various methods of crime prevention have been developed with state and local agencies adopting different techniques. A key aim of crime prevention is to instil an evidence-based approach that emphasises problem solving and analysis and systemic planning of crime policy. The course examines crime prevention policy and practice. Topics include crime prevention through environmental design, situational crime prevention, social prevention, developmental crime prevention, national and international crime prevention policy. The application of crime prevention theory to the problems of terrorism and cybercrime will be examined. Students will learn how to implement and evaluate crime prevention programs. Students will be introduced to crime prevention problem solving and data sources relevant to the planning and delivery of crime prevention programs. The major piece of assessment in the course involves a crime prevention research project that puts students in the field and allows them to analyse crime problems and arrive at possible solutions.

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