PROXIMAL CIRCUMSTANCES: A MECHANISM-BASED CLASSIFICATION OF CRIME PREVENTION

The evaluation of England's Safer Cities Programme requires taking account of over 3,000 diverse preventive schemes. A formal, detailed and comprehensive classification system Is required. In developing It, this paper considers why classification Is necessary, Identifies what features a good classification system needs, and examines—andflnds wanting—existing frameworks. Starting from bastes, a definition of crime prevention Is put forwardfrom which paradigmatic models of the criminal event and of crime prevention Itself are developed, centered around causal mechanisms operating In the proximal circumstances of criminal events—i.e., the situation plus the offender's disposition. Only at this point can the classification system be Introduced, on the platform of a minimal theory of criminal events which nonetheless draws In a range of relevant disciplines—law, psychology, sociology and ecology. It is not a single rigid taxonomy, but a toolkit that can generate alternative classifications and descriptions of preventive actlonfor different purposes by users operating at different levels of sophistication. The paradigms and the classification are put forward here, not as the last word, but as an attempt to stimulate discussion, which will produce further refinement of the approach. It Is argued that the approach adopted has the potential to foster the development of crime prevention as a discipline. The Safer Cities Programme (SCP) managed by the U.K. Home Office has initiated over 3,000 individual preventive schemes since late 1988. Their diversity—a deliberate feature of the program—is notable, ranging, for example, from a single street light outside a retirement home, to the Address correspondence to: 50 Queen Anne's Gate, London SW1H 9AT, England. © This paper carries a U.K. Crown Copyright.