Organised Crime & Crime Prevention - what works? - Scandinavian ...

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NSfK´s 40. forskerseminar, Espoo, Finland 1998 Mårten Landahl, BSocSs (Criminology) Henriksdalsringen 1 S-131 32 Nacka e-mail: info@crimiknowledge.a.se 180 Crime Prevention and Criminological Theory Introduction Over the last two hundred years, numerous theories has been presented as the only, or at least the principal, explanation of crime and/or criminality. Although these theories pinpointing one or a few factors are scientifically important, their use for the practitioner interested in the prevention and control of crime is somewhat limited. For the practitioner (eg administrators and CP-coordinators) these theories have little to offer since most individual theories reflects only a fraction of the everyday reality faced by the practitioner, so (if even the experts can’t agree about what the problem is, or on what to do about it) why bother with theory? Yet a theoretically founded strategy for intervention is of crucial importance, since there is no other way to develop consistent and efficient techniques to reduce criminal victimization. The crime prevention practitioner needs a conceptual framework in which important key elements of disparate theories can be brought together and integrated in a model to facilitate the understanding of crime and the planning of crime prevention initiatives and to improve the understanding of; a) Where (in the causal chain from societal and individual background factors, to the criminal opportunity that) a specific crime prevention initiative is directed? b) Is the proposed initiative proximal or distant to the criminogenic situation. c) If it is reasonable to assume that the plan will work, and d) How changes in Society will affect the type, number and distribution of criminal events. In this paper I will outline such a model. I have attempted to integrate what I consider to be key concepts of interesting theories of crime and criminality. I have worked backwards, from the criminal event, through the situation in which it occurred, more and less proximal background factors and on to the composition and structure of society. The model is however presented in the traditional fashion beginning with theories of society and human nature and ending with the decision-making of individual offenders (figures 1-6). The aim of this paper is to demonstrate how one (of several possible) such integrations can be construed. I will also briefly discuss the implications of the model for crime prevention. 1. A multi-level model The model can be divided into four “level boxes” preceding the actual (criminal)event (figure 1). These boxes are overlapping since levels on the makro-micro scale are somewhat floating. The contents of each of the “level boxes” is presented as mutually exclusive concepts, one figure (2-5) for each of the four “level boxes”, and as the complete model (figure 6).
NSfK´s 40. forskerseminar, Espoo, Finland 1998 Figure 1 A Multi-level Model Structural base The Socialization process Motivational and situational drives The Decisionmaking process Event 1.1.1 Societal organization The basic assumption of the model is that macro-level societal factors such as economic and political system, religious life and degree of Industrialization and urbanization, predetermine three important aspects influencing human behavior. First; underlying societal factors strongly influence biological and social characteristics of the population such as the age structure, the number and survival rate of children and the social desirability of having children of a certain sex. It also determines the parenting and child raising practices and associated features. Second; the degree of Communitarism of neighborhoods, of extended families and between individuals and institutions. Third; the type and kind of media coverage of different events are given as well as what type and kind of individuals are exposed to coverage of particular news and views. 1.1.2 Population Characteristics Most people will agree that societal organization determinates, to a great extent, the characteristics of the population. Not only in the society as a whole (eg number of children and age structure) but that it also, through segregation, affects the characteristics of the people that will live in the individual communities. Tradition, religion, social service and pension benefits, and degree of labor-intensive agriculture plays interrelated and important roles in explaining eg. birth frequency, educational structure and other important differences in population character. In countries like India and China, the social desirability of children of a certain (eg. male) sex combined with modern methods of fetus diagnosis, leads to a decrease in the birth rate of the less desired sex which affects the population characteristics of those societies. 181
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