The study of crime and fear of crime in the countryside has much to offer rural as well as criminological studies. For one thing, greater attention on these issues will complement an otherwise urban geography of crime and will fill important gaps in existing knowledge. In light of recent ‘moral panics’ over increases in rural crime, such work would be timely and could provide important information on the nature and extent of rural crime. Further, such knowledge could have an applied benefit and assist in the development of policing strategies in rural places. However, it is essential that rural crime be studied from a rural perspective. There is a danger otherwise that comparisons with urban areas will lead to a philosophy of ‘less of a problem means that there is no problem.’ It is important to listen to the voices of rural people and how they live out their experience of rural crime. A wide range of voices should be listened to, not just those of dominant or hegemonic groups. In doing so, attention must be focused on the way in which rurality is socially constructed and how ideas of criminality and cultural threat form part of, or threaten, these ideals. In short, there is a need to assess the extent to which ‘fear of crime’ is bound up with cultural difference and is both informed by and impacts upon changing social relations in the countryside. It is important to understand these issues and the way in which they can lead to the exclusion of particular people and lifestyles in rural areas. The recently published White Paper Our Countryside: the Future: a fair deal for rural England (detr 2000) continues the principles of partnership policing established under the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act. This White Paper recognizes that cr... ... middle of paper ... ... being victim to these crimes may be very different. It is also clear that the study of Neighbourhood Watch and rural crime encompasses many social and political issues. Their closer consideration will reveal more about the nature of contemporary rural society and who is considered to be part of it, as well as evaluating how voluntary action continues to sustain the interests of certain rural residents. This paper has attempted to offer an insight into crime concern felt by residents of a rural English village. Although it has provided an initial examination of voluntary response to crime in rural areas, it has focused on an isolated area where crime is below national levels; therefore conclusions should be taken with caution. It would be valuable to conduct research in other areas and, in particular, those deprived rural areas which suffer from higher crime rates.
After the hungry 40’s, in the 19th century when the benefits of the industrial revolution began to appear, crime rates went down because food prices were more stable and sometimes decreasing and there was a higher amount of exports of industrial goods leading to more money. (Clive Emsley, Crime Reasoning Notecard, 41.) The police played a very small role in the decrease in crime but the years of carefully thought out policing systems ..
Crime exists everywhere. It is exists in our country, in the big cities, the small towns, schools, and even in homes. Crime is defined as “any action that is a violation of law”. These violations may be pending, but in order to at least lower the crime rate, an understanding of why the crimes are committed must first be sought. There are many theories that are able to explain crimes, but three very important ones are rational choice theory, social disorganization theory and strain theory.
Cyril Connolly once said, “Slums may well be breeding grounds of crime, but middle class suburbs are incubators of apathy and delirium”. This is the common attitude about crime in this day and age. There is no doubt that there has been a recent increase in crime. However, our society is constantly playing the “blame-game.” In the articles “Romanticizing ‘Broken Windows” by Charles M. Blow and “Broken Windows’ Policing Does Work” by Heather Mac Donald, both authors are tip-toeing around the real issues and solutions, and, instead, fighting about what, or who is at fault for crime on the climb. In all reality, does it really matter what the major cause is? Do we really need to know the root to fix the problem?
The article for discussion this week regarding “Policing and the Fear of Crime” touched on the significant factors that reference the fear of crime. The article first addresses how people feel about crime in their community. Then it progresses the analysis fear from a collection of data and concepts retrieved from research, surveys, and polls. There was an evaluation done in the seventies and eighties, which showed an overwhelming percentage of people who were fearful of becoming victims of violent crimes. There was data retrieved from polls that suggested people were even limiting their activities because they felt uneasy about walking down the street. The sense of fear traveled across different ages, sexes, and professions. The least frightened group individuals were young men, and the most scared were senior women (Moore & Trojanowicz, 1988). There were also variables such as race, class, and residence that altered the public’s perception about fear of violence. The researchers investigated participants who felt as thou if they were ever to acquire wealth and status, their fears of being victims of crime would reduce dramatically. Next, the article addressed what causes someone to become fearful. It was the possibility of actually becoming a victim of a crime which was a considerable influence on person’s fear of crime. There are also the factors of hearsay information about victimization traveling through word of mouth and social networks that cause people to become fearful. While I was assigned to the Gang Unit, people would always ask the questions about the rumors that get passed around about gangs targeting specific individuals for initiations around certain days and times. During my time on the unit,
The French make the mistake of keeping a standing army in time of peace, and these men prove a menace to society, since they are either idle or trying to overthrow the government. A third class of people who are forced into thievery in England, says Hythloday, are rural people who are victims of the growing practice of enclosure of arable land for the grazing of sheep. Wool has become profitable in England and landowners are keen to cash in. To this end, they turn out of their homes the farm tenants who previously worked the land to grow food, and fence it in for sheep pasture, often demolishing the houses to make room for more sheep. While arable farming requires many laborers, the keeping of sheep needs few. Thus large populations of unemployed and starving agricultural laborers roam the land. Another class of people who turn to thievery is gamblers, who must find a way of replenishing their lost money. Hythloday would ban gambling and bring in government legislation to regulate the production of wool. One of the root causes of thievery, Hythloday says, is poor education. If society fails to educate its people, it should not be surprised if they turn to crime. Finally, he adds that if the punishment for theft and murder is the same, then robbers will be more disposed to kill their victims and thereby get rid of the witness, as if he is caught, he will be no worse off for having killed.Hythloday describes a better method of dealing
In general, official statistics of crime recorded by the police and surveys of the public such as victim surveys and self-report studies are the three main measures of the extent of crime in Britain. The oldest method is to rely on official data collected by criminal justice agencies, such as data on arrests or convictions. The other two rely on social surveys. In one case, individuals are asked if they have been victims of crime; in the other, they are asked to self-report their own criminal activity. (Terence P. Thornberry and Marvin D. Krohn) Although these are a main secondary source of quantitative data, each of them may contain some drawbacks. Thus, this essay will introduce these three methods and demonstrates their disadvantages, such as the police crime statistics exclude the unreported and unrecorded crime;
This theory however as some have argued has emerged from social disorganisation theory, which sees the causes of crime as a matter of macro level disadvantage. Macro level disadvantage are the following: low socioeconomic status, ethnic or racial heterogeneity, these things they believe are the reasons for crime due to the knock on effect these factors have on the community network and schools. Consequently, if th...
In today’s society the term ‘crime’ could be described as a buzzword. It could be argued that today’s society is both fearful of, and fascinated by, crime. There have been many explanations as to why society is increasingly both fearful and fascinated by the crime problem in the UK. This essay will outline what is meant by the term ‘crime’; will present evidence that society is both fascinated by and fearful of crime and discuss what factors may be contributing to this.
Community policing is a form of maintaining law and order in a neighbourhood through cooperation between the community members and the police (Putt, 2010). Since its establishment, community development has had various advantages on communities. Firstly, community policing develops a close-knit relationship between the police and the communities which develops the trust of the community members towards the police (Bartkowiak-Théron, & Crehan, 2010). Secondly, community policing aids in reducing fear among community members who are guaranteed of security from their cooperation with the police. The police operate within the community which raises the security standards of the community. Thirdly, community policing leads to the involvement of the community members in the
The dominant theme within the article Appeals to community and crime prevention (Crawford, 1995) is the theme of community – which sees several definitions and applications throughout the article. The paper engages in the numerous ways in which ‘community’ can be defined, all of which are reasonable but also hold widely differing ideals to each other. For example, the definition of ‘community as a defence against outsiders’ (Crawford, 1995, p.106) – in an ‘us vs. them’ manner – is a legitimate definition of what community could be, but at the same time it is widely different to the concept of ‘community as shared space’ (Crawford, 1995, p.108), though it also is a legitimate manner of defining what a community could be. Calhoun (1998, cited in Blackshaw, 2010) however notes that “community” cannot be defined as a group of people or a certain place, which throws both previous definitions out of the water. The concept of community is a fluid idea, that is open to interpretation and change, and the applications of it in modern
Anxiety about crime is not a newly found phenomenon. The academic analyses of crime firstly began in the nineteenth century through some biological and psychological explanations. It was then shifted into a more sociological approach in the 1950’s (Bilton, Bonnet & Jones, 2002:384). The existence of the criminal justice system as an instrument to prevent crime has also been developed for many years. However, later findings likely show that crime prevention needs to be put to practice not only within, but also outside the criminal justice system. It is commonly known as social intervention (Gilling, 1996:11). This essay will show that social intervention seems to be the best strategy to reduce and prevent crime. This essay will also discuss some major causal factors of crime, the social intervention and criminal justice system strategic approach to crime control, and how each strategy fulfils the main goals of crime reduction and prevention.
Chris Kershaw, Tracey Budd, Graham Kinshott, Joanna Mattinson, Pat Mayhew, Andy Myhill.The 2000 British Crime Survey (England & Wales). Home Office Statistical Bulletin 18/00. Oct. 2000. http://www.crimereduction.gov.uk/statistics12.htm
Henry, S. and Lanier, M. M. (2001). What is Crime? Controversies Over the Nature of Crime and What to do About it. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.
Modern crime has often been thought to arise from these ashes in areas where there is social disorganisation ultimately leading to individual disorganisation. [10] In this context, crime is a structured choice to...
First is the environmental crime prevention that finds to replace the particular attitudes of the communities that may result in criminal actions (Crawford, 1998). They study on what specific reasons why people commit crime. However, they consider the environment as the most influential factors of committing a crime, so they are focusing on how to reduce crime by targeting the possible causes of crimes or possible opportunities that criminals can get into. Second, situational crime prevention, perhaps it is based upon the evidence that crime is often resourceful and aims to modify on related factor to limit the opportunities for offender to engage criminal behavior (Tonry and Farrington, 1995; Cornish & Clarke, 2003). This study specified the actions or measures that prioritize the importance of focusing the very specific opportunities of crime in a certain circumstances. Furthermore, they tend to lessen the said opportunities for committing a crime through this crime prevention. Third is social crime prevention, which focuses on physical environment (Rosenbaum, D. P., Lurigio, A.J. & Davis, R. C., 1998). They may include action to improve housing, health and educational achievement, as well as improve community cohesion through community developmental measure. And also, they give more attention on how crime is