NCJ Number
218040
Date Published
2007
Length
25 pages
Annotation
This chapter identifies six strategies for using "hard" technology (equipment and devices) and "soft" technology (computer software and measurement instruments) to enhance social and crime control and assesses them for their effectiveness and potential for abuse.
Abstract
Target removal, which minimizes attractive targets for criminal attack is the most effective strategy and provides the least opportunity for abuse. Another social-engineering strategy, "target devaluation," involves reducing or eliminating the value/attractiveness of a potential target for criminal attack. Although the target continues to exist, it can be designed so that only authorized users can benefit from possessing it. A third strategy is "target insulation." This involves protecting a target that holds value for potential offenders, such that the barriers to obtaining it are so difficult to overcome, that a potential offender will not target it. A fourth strategy is "offender weakening" or "incapacitation." This involves altering an offender's circumstance such that he/she is incapable physically or otherwise of performing a specific criminal act. A related strategy is "exclusion," whereby potential offenders and undesirables are exiled, imprisoned, or made subject to curfews, such that they have few opportunities to do harm. A sixth strategy is to decrease a potential offender's motivation for committing a crime because of the increased likelihood of detection and apprehension. 19 notes and 45 references