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Crime science is the study of crime in order to find ways to prevent it. It is distinguished from criminology in that it is focused on how crime is committed and how to reduce it, rather than on who committed it. It is multidisciplinary, notably recruiting scientific methodology rather than relying on social theory. [1]
Crime science involves the application of scientific methodologies to prevent or reduce social disorder and find better ways to prevent, detect, and solve crimes. [2] [3] Crime science studies crime related events and how those events arise, or can be prevented, by attempting to understand the temptations and opportunities which provoke or allow offending, and which affect someone's choice to offend on a particular occasion, rather than assuming the problem is simply about bad people versus good people. [3] It is a empirical approach often involving observational studies or quasi-experiments, as well as using randomised controlled trials, that seek to identify patterns of offending behaviour and factors that influence criminal offending behaviour and crime. [3] [4] The multi-disciplinary approach that involves practitioners from many fields including Policing, Geography, Urban Development, Mathematics, Statistics, Industrial Design, Construction Engineering, Physical Sciences, Medical Sciences, Economics, Computer Science, Psychology, Sociology, Criminology, Forensics, Law, and Public Management. [3] [5] [6]
Crime science was conceived by the British broadcaster Nick Ross in the late 1990s (with encouragement from the then Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir John Stevens and Professor Ken Pease) out of concern that traditional criminology and orthodox political discourse were doing little to influence the ebb and flow of crime (e.g. Ross: Police Foundation Lecture, London, 11 July 2000 (jointly with Sir John Stevens); Parliamentary and Scientific Committee, 22 March 2001; Barlow Lecture, UCL, 6 April 2005). [1] [7] [8] Ross described crime science as, "examining the chain of events that leads to crime in order to cut the weakest link" (Royal Institution Lecture 9 May 2002). [7] [9]
The first incarnation of crime science was the founding, also by Ross, of the Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science (JDI) at University College London in 2001. [10] In order to reflect its broad disciplinary base, and its departure from the sociological (and often politicised) brand of criminology, the Institute is established in the Engineering Sciences Faculty, with growing ties to the physical sciences such as physics and chemistry but also drawing on the fields of statistics, environmental design, psychology, forensics, policing, economics and geography. [10]
The JDI grew rapidly and spawned a new Department of Security and Crime Science, which itself developed into one of the largest departments of its type in the world. It has established itself as a world-leader in crime mapping and for training crime analysts (civilian crime profilers who work for the police) and its Centre for the Forensic Sciences has been influential in debunking bad science in criminal detection.[ citation needed ] It established the world's first secure data lab for security and crime pattern analysis and appointed the world's first Professor of Future Crime whose role is to horizon-scan to foresee and forestall tomorrow's crime challenges. The JDI also developed a Security Science Doctoral Research Training Centre (UCL SECReT), which was Europe’s largest centre for doctoral training in security and crime science.[ citation needed ]
Another branch of crime science has grown from its combination with design science.[ citation needed ] At the Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design a research centre was founded with the focus of studying how design could be used as a tool against crime - the Design against Crime Research Centre.[ incomplete short citation ] A number of practical theft-aware design practices have emerged there.[ citation needed ] Examples are chairs with a hanger that allows people to keep their bags within their reach for the whole time, or foldable bicycles that can serve as their own safety lock by wrapping around static poles in the environment.
An international Crime Science Network was formed in 2003, with support from the EPSRC.[ citation needed ] Since then the term crime science has been variously interpreted, sometimes with a different emphasis from Ross's original description published in 1999, and often favouring situational crime prevention (redesigning products, services and policies to remove opportunities, temptations and provocations and make detection more certain) rather than other forms of intervention.[ citation needed ] However a common feature is a focus on delivering immediate reductions in crime.[ citation needed ]
New crime science departments have been established at Waikato, Cincinnati, Philadelphia and elsewhere.[ citation needed ]
The concept of crime science appears to be taking root more broadly with:
In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term crime does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition, though statutory definitions have been provided for certain purposes. The most popular view is that crime is a category created by law; in other words, something is a crime if declared as such by the relevant and applicable law. One proposed definition is that a crime or offence is an act harmful not only to some individual but also to a community, society, or the state. Such acts are forbidden and punishable by law.
The term "white-collar crime" refers to financially motivated, nonviolent or non-directly violent crime committed by individuals, businesses and government professionals. It was first defined by the sociologist Edwin Sutherland in 1939 as "a crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of their occupation". Typical white-collar crimes could include wage theft, fraud, bribery, Ponzi schemes, insider trading, labor racketeering, embezzlement, cybercrime, copyright infringement, money laundering, identity theft, and forgery. White-collar crime overlaps with corporate crime.
In the United States, the relationship between race and crime has been a topic of public controversy and scholarly debate for more than a century. Crime rates vary significantly between racial groups. Academic research indicates that the over-representation of some racial minorities in the criminal justice system can in part be explained by socioeconomic factors, such as poverty, exposure to poor neighborhoods, poor access to public and early education, and exposure to harmful chemicals and pollution. Racial housing segregation has also been linked to racial disparities in crime rates, as Blacks have historically and to the present been prevented from moving into prosperous low-crime areas through actions of the government and private actors. Various explanations within criminology have been proposed for racial disparities in crime rates, including conflict theory, strain theory, general strain theory, social disorganization theory, macrostructural opportunity theory, social control theory, and subcultural theory.
Offender profiling, also known as criminal profiling, is an investigative strategy used by law enforcement agencies to identify likely suspects and has been used by investigators to link cases that may have been committed by the same perpetrator. Multiple crimes may be linked to a specific offender and the profile may be used to predict the identified offender's future actions.
Environmental criminology focuses on criminal patterns within particular built environments and analyzes the impacts of these external variables on people's cognitive behavior. It forms a part of criminology's Positivist School in that it applies the scientific method to examine the society that causes crime.
Right realism, in criminology, also known as New Right Realism, Neo-Classicism, Neo-Positivism, or Neo-Conservatism, is the ideological polar opposite of left realism. It considers the phenomenon of crime from the perspective of political conservatism and asserts that it takes a more realistic view of the causes of crime and deviance, and identifies the best mechanisms for its control. Unlike the other schools of criminology, there is less emphasis on developing theories of causality in relation to crime and deviance. The school employs a rationalist, direct and scientific approach to policy-making for the prevention and control of crime. Some politicians who ascribe to the perspective may address aspects of crime policy in ideological terms by referring to freedom, justice, and responsibility. For example, they may be asserting that individual freedom should only be limited by a duty not to use force against others. This, however, does not reflect the genuine quality in the theoretical and academic work and the real contribution made to the nature of criminal behaviour by criminologists of the school.
The feminist school of criminology is a school of criminology developed in the late 1960s and into the 1970s as a reaction to the general disregard and discrimination of women in the traditional study of crime. It is the view of the feminist school of criminology that a majority of criminological theories were developed through studies on male subjects and focused on male criminality, and that criminologists often would "add women and stir" rather than develop separate theories on female criminality.
In criminology, rational choice theory adopts a utilitarian belief that humans are reasoning actors who weigh means and ends, costs and benefits, in order to make a rational choice. This method was designed by Cornish and Clarke to assist in thinking about situational crime prevention.
Crime prevention is the attempt to reduce and deter crime and criminals. It is applied specifically to efforts made by governments to reduce crime, enforce the law, and maintain criminal justice.
The UCL Jill Dando Institute of Security and Crime Science is an institute of crime science located in London, United Kingdom, and a part of University College London (UCL). It was founded in 2001, becoming the first university institute in the world devoted specifically to crime science. The institute's current director is Richard Wortley.
Gloria Laycock was the founding Director of the Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science at University College London (UCL), and ran UCL's Centre for Security & Crime Science. She is an internationally renowned expert in crime prevention, and especially situational approaches which seek to design out situations which provoke crime.
Black Cobra is one of the largest immigrant street gangs in Denmark and is represented in most major Danish cities, with approximately 100 members. The gang is also active in Sweden, having established itself in the Malmö district Rosengård and the Stockholm suburbs of Tensta, Rissne and Rinkeby. The Black Cobra gang also control a youth gang called the Black Scorpions. Their criminal activity involves drug trafficking, robbery, theft, racketeering, extortion and murder. The police describe Black Cobra as a loose network composed of strong leadership figures. Black Cobra members wear black and white shirts with an emblem on the back of a cobra in attack position. The shirts also have Black Cobra written on them, above the emblem in Old English-style writing.
Biosocial criminology is an interdisciplinary field that aims to explain crime and antisocial behavior by exploring biocultural factors. While contemporary criminology has been dominated by sociological theories, biosocial criminology also recognizes the potential contributions of fields such as behavioral genetics, neuropsychology, and evolutionary psychology.
Criminology is the interdisciplinary study of crime and deviant behaviour. Criminology is a multidisciplinary field in both the behavioural and social sciences, which draws primarily upon the research of sociologists, political scientists, economists, psychologists, philosophers, psychiatrists, social workers, biologists, social anthropologists, as well as scholars of law.
David L. Weisburd, is an Israeli/American criminologist who is well known for his research on crime and place, policing and white collar crime. Weisburd was the 2010 recipient of the prestigious Stockholm Prize in Criminology, and was recently awarded the Israel Prize in Social Work and Criminological Research, considered the state's highest honor. Weisburd holds joint tenured appointments as Distinguished Professor of Criminology, Law and Society at George Mason University. and Walter E. Meyer Professor of Law and Criminal Justice in the Institute of Criminology of the Hebrew University Faculty of Law, At George Mason University Weisburd was founder of the Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy and is now its executive director. Weisburd also serves as Chief Science Advisor at the National Police Foundation in Washington, D.C., and chair of its Research Advisory Committee. Weisburd was the founding editor of the Journal of Experimental Criminology, and is now the general editor of the Journal of Quantitative Criminology.
Crime displacement is the relocation of crime as a result of police crime-prevention efforts. Crime displacement has been linked to problem-oriented policing, but it may occur at other levels and for other reasons. Community-development efforts may be a reason why criminals move to other areas for their criminal activity. The idea behind displacement is that when motivated criminal offenders are deterred, they will commit crimes elsewhere. Geographic police initiatives include assigning police officers to specific districts so they become familiar with residents and their problems, creating a bond between law-enforcement agencies and the community. These initiatives complement crime displacement, and are a form of crime prevention. Experts in the area of crime displacement include Kate Bowers, Rob T. Guerette, and John E. Eck.
A narrative crime script is a step-by-step account of the procedures and decision-making processes involved in a particular event, usually relating to an illegal activity.
Anthony Allan Braga is an American criminologist and the Jerry Lee Professor of Criminology at the University of Pennsylvania. Braga is also the Director of the Crime and Justice Policy Lab at the University of Pennsylvania. He previously held faculty and senior research positions at Harvard University, Northeastern University, Rutgers University, and the University of California at Berkeley. Braga is a member of the federal monitor team overseeing the reforms to New York City Police Department (NYPD) policies, training, supervision, auditing, and handling of complaints and discipline regarding stops and frisks and trespass enforcement.
Kenneth George Pease is a British forensic psychologist and criminologist. He is a visiting professor at the Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science at University College London, a visiting professor at the University of Loughborough and an honorary visiting fellow at the Cathie Marsh Centre for Census and Survey Research at the University of Manchester. Previous positions he has held include Head of School of Sociology and Social Policy at the Ulster Polytechnic from 1981 to 1983, professor of criminology at the University of Huddersfield, the University of Manchester, the head of the Home Office's Policing and Reducing Crime Unit from 1999 to 2000, advisor to the Home Office Crime Reduction Programme from 2000 to 2003, associate professor at the University of Saskatchewan and consultant criminologist at the Correctional Service of Canada, working in the maximum security Regional Psychiatric Centre (Prairies), Saskatoon. He has been described as a "leading British criminologist" by Zoe McKnight of Maclean's.
The crime drop or crime decline is a pattern observed in many countries whereby rates of many types of crime declined by 50% or more beginning in the mid to late 1980s and early 1990s.
... we discuss how recent criminological developments that focus on the criminal act, represent a departure from traditional criminology, which examines the causes of criminality. ... a number of criminologists have criticised their discipline for assuming that the task of explaining the causes of criminality is the same as explaining the criminal act. ... how people develop a criminal disposition is only half the equation. What is also required is an explanation of how crimes are perpetrated. Criminological approaches, which focus on the criminal act, would appear to offer more to ... practitioners than their dispositional counterparts. ...
Abstract: Few criticisms of situational crime‐prevention (SCP) efforts are as frequent or prevalent as claims of displacement. Despite emerging evidence to the contrary, the prevailing sentiment seems to be that crime displacement is inevitable. This study examined 102 evaluations of situationally focused crime‐prevention projects in an effort to determine the extent to which crime displacement was observed. The results indicate that of the 102 studies that examined (or allowed for examination of) displacement and diffusion effects, there were 574 observations. Displacement was observed in 26 percent of those observations. The opposite of displacement, diffusion of benefit, was observed in 27 percent of the observations. Moreover, the analysis of 13 studies, which allowed for assessment of overall outcomes of the prevention project while taking into account spatial displacement and diffusion effects, revealed that when spatial displacement did occur, it tended to be less than the treatment effect, suggesting that the intervention was still beneficial. Implications for theory and future research are discussed.
... now accepted that human error in healthcare is inevitable ... a punitive response does not facilitate patient safety ... system approach acknowledges that adverse events ... rarely have a single explanation and advocates the review of systemic factors ... Rational choice theory has much in common with the system approach but the emphasis is on understanding the decision making process of those who make errors ... in conjunction with the system approach to ... learn from ... adverse events. ... explore the relationship between rational choice theory and the system approach to error management ...
This paper offers a first history of crime science, a term originally coined by Nick Ross to reflect his concerns at what he saw as the failure of the criminal justice system to respond effectively to crime and the potential of a more scientific approach to its control. We begin by describing more fully what is distinctive about the methods and aspirations of crime science. We then move on to discuss streams of existing research that have provided the main foundations of and rationale for the new discipline. Having looked to its past, we then turn to the developing agenda for crime science. Here we lay out the promising areas that are likely, we think, to prove fruitful in coming years.
Gloria Laycock is the founding director of the Jill Dando Institute ... has been instrumental in defining the new field of crime science. ... she sets out the case for crime science and covers the essential features of the approach. Her main point is that many cherished social theories about crime – for example, that it is a direct consequence of poverty – do not hold up to empirical scrutiny, while current crime policies are based on assumptions and political considerations rather than evidence. What is needed, according to Laycock, is a scientific, evidence-based approach to crime reduction policy and practice.
Crime science is a very recent addition to the criminological lexicon. It lacks a standard definition, few criminologists use the term routinely and even fewer might think of themselves as crime scientists. ... the term was created by Nick Ross, the presenter of BBC TV's monthly 'Crimewatch' program, who incorporated it in the name of the institute The Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science that he founded in 2001 at University College London (UCL) in memory of his murdered colleague. He chose the term crime science, not criminology, because he ...
