Forensic Psychology For Dummies (81 page)

Examining Ways to Prevent (or at Least Combat) Crime

This section covers just a few ways in which authorities try to combat crime: most involve psychology in one way or another and some may be simpler than you’d think.

Understanding the weaknesses of criminals in their use of new technologies opens up new directions for law enforcement. The use of mobile phones is widespread among criminals in South Africa, even those who live in informal settlements (shanty towns). Yet many of these criminals aren’t aware of how the police can now use mobile phone networks to locate the offenders. Police have caught serial rapists and murderers through the simple device of calling them on a mobile phone they’ve stolen from a victim! This is an instance of police using psychology in the battle against crime – or to put it more basically, out-thinking offenders!

Making crime more difficult

The central idea of all attempts to reduce crime, rather than the more optimistic goal of preventing it completely, is to make criminal activity less attractive to the criminal. This reduction can be done in a number of ways:

Target-hardening:
This is the most common way of thinking about making crimes more difficult to carry out. It can include everything from making sure that people lock their cars, to putting hooks under tables in busy places so that handbags can be hung there and so are less vulnerable to being snatched, right the way through to the concrete slabs outside embassies and airports that stop terrorists from driving car bombs into them. Increased lighting and other design developments that make any nefarious activity easier to see can also be part of this approach.

Damping:
If it becomes apparent that a particular form of crime is developing, such as a spate of pickpocketing or break-ins to schools, authorities may set in motion attempts at damping the criminal actions. Methods include campaigns to make people more aware of the problem, increased surveillance or even increased direct attempts to arrest the main culprits.

Zero-tolerance:
This approach seeks to disrupt the development of an individual’s criminal career and is based on the assumption that people often start offending by committing minor crimes such as painting graffiti or breaking windows. If they can be made aware early on that their behaviour is unacceptable, and that they risk becoming more heavily involved in the criminal justice system, this awareness may reduce the likelihood of further more serious criminality.

The added benefit of zero-tolerance – if it also includes removing from the streets burnt-out cars, rubbish and other signs that a neighbourhood tolerates antisocial behaviour and criminality – is that it sends a message to would-be criminals that their offences aren’t going to be tolerated. This sets in motion a virtuous cycle that produces fewer signs of crime and less attractiveness of the area to possible offenders.

Gated communities:
This is a direct environmental, or even architectural, approach that seeks to restrict access to potential criminal targets. Gated communities have been established in the richer parts of South American cities for many years and are becoming increasingly popular in the US and a few locations around Europe.

In the UK, attempts have been made to make access to houses more difficult for burglars. For example, the small alleys at the back of houses in layouts such as Victorian terraces are especially conducive to illegal activity. Cutting them off with gates to which only residents have keys (called
alleygating
) removes this problem. The interesting psychological benefit, beyond reducing crime, is that people feel they have more ownership of their area and an enhanced community spirit. This feeds into the virtuous cycle that I note in relation to zero-tolerance above.

In general, research shows that alleygating reduces crime in a particular area. In one circumstance, however, it can increase crime. If persistent burglars live within the area surrounded by the gates, they may not be able to get out easily to offend elsewhere, with a resulting increase in their committing crimes locally!

Ensuring that crime doesn’t pay

Many studies of criminals point to the deterrent effect of getting caught. The risk of the punishment isn’t what stops them, however, but the challenge and loss of face that comes with being detected. Consequently improvement in policing and detection (to which psychology can contribute, as I discuss in Chapters 5 and 6) is a way of reducing crime.

The problem is that many criminals don’t fully understand the risks of being caught, thinking that they’re impervious to detection. Also, with police clearing up only around one in ten burglaries, burglars have some cause for holding this assumption. Therefore, increased effectiveness of detection not only brings criminals into the justice system where they can be punished, or helped to see the error of their ways, but also discourages other criminals from taking the risk of getting caught and so can reduce crime.

Disrupting criminal careers

One approach of crime prevention is to work directly with offenders and diminish the likelihood of them committing further crimes, or at least reduce the prevalence of their offending. For much more on the various programmes in place, especially for violent offenders and those who’ve committed sex crimes, check out the chapters in Part V.

Addressing some of the background contributions to an individual committing criminality can help to reduce or even prevent crime. One obvious example is drug abuse. The expensiveness of high levels of illegal drug use, as well as the way buying and selling these drugs becomes part of criminal activities, doubtless fosters many forms of theft as well as violence. Whether drug addiction itself causes crime is open to debate, but I’ve certainly spoken to criminals who say that they didn’t use illegal drugs until they became involved in property crime that gave them the money to buy the drugs, or were introduced to substance abuse through their association with other criminals.

Alcohol abuse also contributes to many forms of crime, especially outbursts of violence, and so helping people to deal with alcoholism can reduce criminality. This process is very demanding, however, because of peer pressure and the institutionalised popular amusement and even attractiveness associated with drunkenness.

Treating people for alcohol addiction requires helping them to cope with the temptations to have a drink. In prisons where no alcohol is available it is difficult to provide the experiences that will develop those coping mechanisms.