NCJ Number
201101
Date Published
2002
Length
30 pages
Annotation
This chapter explores some of the problems with ignoring those individuals who live in high crime neighborhoods in undertaking crime prevention efforts, and reflections of researching some of the United Kingdom’s poorest communities and community crime prevention.
Abstract
The essential elements of community crime prevention include the people who live in high crime neighborhoods, who have often been seen as incidental rather than essential to crime prevention efforts. In this chapter, the author explores the dynamics of community crime prevention, specifically the problems with neglecting the “people pieces,” those who live in high crime neighborhoods, and reflections of researching some of Britain’s poorest communities with the theory, politics, methods, and practice of community crime prevention. In focusing on the “people pieces," two case studies are reviewed in order to highlight the problems that structural disadvantage can promote and the ways in which the “people pieces” can be left behind. The case studies exemplify the difficulties which have beset deprived neighborhoods across Britain for decades because interventions have never succeeded in setting in motion a virtuous circle of regeneration, with improvements in jobs, crime, education, health and housing, all reinforcing each other. It is essential to work with and alongside, not for or on behalf of communities. Local people have to feel that they are stakeholders in the process, not bystanders. It is necessary not to forget the importance of the “people pieces,” because without these and the structural difficulties which shape them there will not be a lasting impact on crime. References