Situational Crime Prevention: The (New Right) Theory
In two previous posts (Categorising Situational Crime Prevention Strategies and Categorising Situational Crime Prevention: Techniques and Examples) we looked at some examples of situational crime prevention strategies and techniques and this third post examines the theoretical background to situational crime prevention in a couple of ways: Firstly, by looking at the broad background in terms of […]
SCP and the Craving for Hot Products
An important dimension of Routine Activities Theory is the element of target suitability and selection. Even in situations where a motivated offender is somewhere that lacks active guardians, how and why they select one target rather than another is an important question in relation to situational crime prevention. This was directly addressed by Felson and […]
Visualising Routine Activities Theory
Routine Activities Theory has been described (by me, just now) as one of the key theoretical contributions to the development of Situational Crime Prevention strategies and techniques. In broad terms it sees crime as the outcome of both “opportunity” (Mayhew, 1976; Clarke, 1988) and “routine activities” (Cohen and Felson 1979) and represents, for Felson and […]
Patterns of Crime and the Social Characteristics of Offenders: Gender and Ethnicity
After a brief hiatus, we’re back to business with a fifth example of Jill Swale’s ATSS work, this one focusing on patterns of offending and how differences based on gender and ethnicity (you can easily add further variables, such as age, to the exercise if you want) can be identified and explained. The exercise itself […]
What’s in the Envelope?
This activity from Sharon Martin is relatively simple to set-up and run and, as an added bonus, can be used with any area of the Specification (both Psychology and Sociology): this example is based on the Sociology of Crime and Deviance. The activity is mainly for revision / recap sessions, although there’s probably no reason […]
Making the Sociology of Crime and Deviance 10 Years Younger
Let’s face it the A2 Crime and Deviance syllabus is looking old. The years of blocked aspiration, anomie, unjust labelling and misplaced radicalism have taken their toll. A recent shopping mall poll put most the major theories at pensionable age, and even the dynamic ‘young’ radical ones were seen as ‘pushing 40’! But we have […]
Situational Crime Prevention Video
This is a video version of the Cornish and Clarke Situational Crime Prevention PowerPoint presentation. The film runs for around 3 minutes.
Categorising Situational Crime Prevention Strategies
Situational crime prevention is an area that has grown in significance over the past 30 years, both in terms of social policies towards crime and sociological / criminological solutions to “the problem of crime”; it involves, according to Clarke (1997), a range of measures designed to reduce or eliminate “opportunities for crime” in three main […]
Crime and Gender: Critical Thinking and Essay Writing
A third example of Jill Swale’s work, once more culled from the ATSS archive lurking in my expansive filing cabinet, is an essay-writing exercise constructed around the question: “Assess the view that the women’s crime rate, according to official statistics, is lower than men’s because of differential enforcement of the low.” The activity has three […]
NotAFactsheet: More Deviance
Three new NotAFactsheets to add to your growing collection covering: 1. Interactionism (labelling theory, personal and social identities, master labels) 2. Deviancy Amplification (an outline of the model plus the role of the media) 3. Critical Theory (Instrumental and Hegemonic Marxism, Critical Subcultures) Each NotaFactsheet is available in two flavours: with and without short (1 […]
Why is Gaz in Court for Mugging?
A second example of Jill Swale’s work, lovingly-culled from the ATSS archive, is based around the requirement for students to “solve a mystery by selecting and ordering relevant material through group discussion”. In terms of game mechanics, this is a relatively simple sift-sort-match exercise: students work in small groups to link case study material to […]
Deviancy Amplification PowerPoint
Deviancy Amplification has become something of a classic example of an Interactionist approach to deviance, predominantly, but not exclusively, because of Jock Young’s seminal analysis (1971) of “The role of the police as amplifiers of deviance, negotiators of reality and translators of fantasy”. This is a little ironic given that Leslie Wilkins’ original formulation of […]
NotAFactsheet: Crime and Deviance
I thought it would make a change from research methods to put together a few NotAFactsheets on crime and deviance, so here are the first products of what no-one’s calling a “radical new departure in NotAFactsheet production”. These three efforts focus on and around Functionalist-type approaches to crime: D1. Functionalist Approaches | D1. Functionalist Approaches […]
Connecting Walls Collection
CBSC Sociology has been busy creating and posting a huge number of revision Connecting Walls on Twitter and, in the spirit of “pinching other people’s stuff and sharing it with a wider audience”, I’ve pulled all their tweets together into one handy blog post for your – and your students’ – greater convenience. So, if […]
Connecting Revision Too
If you’ve seen the previous post on Connecting Revision you may have tried the Family Connecting Wall created by Steve Bishop (and maybe even been inspired to think about creating and sharing your own?). He’s now created a new Wall to add to your revising pleasure and this time it’s on Crime and Deviance. As ever […]