Jack Tizard Memorial Lecture Delinquency, Environment and Intervention

Abstract

Twenty years of Home Office research into delinquency prevention support Jack Tizard's belief that greater improvements in performance and behaviour are likely to attend efforts to change environments rather than inner dispositions. Situational measures which reduce opportunities for crime seem more effective than attempts to reform delinquents. Moreover, given that most delinquents desist from crime in early adulthood, minimal interference in their lives may be the best policy. For those requiring institutional placement, humane care rather than reform should be the goal.

Differential Cost Avoidance and Successful Criminal Careers

“…Some of the results seem to suggest at least some degree of rationality, however minimal, on the part of the cost avoiders. It has been suggested that the decision to desist or persist in crime is a result of an assessment of costs and benefits associated with criminal acts (Clarke, 1985;Gartner & Piliavin, 1988). This cost-benefit analysis can be clouded by impulsivity because the rewards of crime are immediate and the benefits of noncrime are distant (see Piquero & Tibbetts, 1996).…”

Urbanism and Child Mental Health

“…It is also clear that urban environments provide both greater temptation in terms of the range of targets for theft and vandalism and greater anonymity (Rutter & Giller, 1983). A number of studies have convincingly shown an effect on the level of delinquency of measures designed to make crime more difficult (Clarke, 1985). For example, the introduction of the compulsory steering locks on cars in Germany (Rutter, 1979) or greater directed supervision (but not community surveillance), for example with the use of doorkeepers in apartment blocks (Waller & Okihiro, 1978).…”

Pathways from Childhood to Adult Life*

“…In his presidential address to the British Psychological Society (Tizard, 1976), he argued for the importance of the immediate environment as the main influence on a person's behaviour, and he urged that we should abandon notions about the long term value of preventive interventions such as Headstart, and that instead we should examine the characteristics of the environment that contribute to immediate happiness and well being. Those cautions remain apposite today, and both of the first two Jack Tizard lectures-by Alan Clarke (Clarke & Clarke, 1984) and by Ron Clarke (1985)-developed these themes well and showed their importance.…”