Reclaiming crime prevention in an age of punishment: An American history

Abstract

Crime prevention has long figured prominently in the scholarly and applied traditions of criminology. Using a socio-historical approach, this article examines the developments of and influences on the concept of crime prevention in the USA over the last century. We argue that crime prevention is a unique social and environmental strategy for reducing crime and is distinct from crime control or punishment. Prevention’s main characteristics include a focus on intervening in the first instance – before a crime has been committed – and operating outside of the formal justice system. The historical record of the scholarship and practice of crime prevention in the USA embraces this view. A more current perspective sees crime prevention as the full range of techniques, from prenatal home visits to prison sentences, defined more by its outcome – the prevention of a future criminal event – than its character or approach. A return to the original meaning of prevention is considered.

Retracted: Lynchings, Racial Threat, and Whites’ Punitive Views Toward Blacks

“…In recent decades, American criminal justice increasingly transformed into a system that prioritizes retribution and get‐tough approaches to crime control (Tonry and Nagin, ; Welsh and Pfeffer, ). As Garland (: 10) has written, “official policies regulating crime and punishment always invoke and express a range of collective sentiments,” but since the 1970s, “the background affect of policy is now more frequently a collective anger and a righteous demand for retribution.” This punitive turn entailed, and can be seen in, a panoply of changes.…”

Who cares about a delinquency prevention experiment of Boston boys born in the 1920s and 1930s? The need for long‐term follow‐ups in criminology

“…Begun in 1939 and made famous by the pioneering research of Joan McCord in later years (e.g., McCord, ; ), the CSYS was conceived at a time of tremendous innovation to prevent delinquency outside of the formal juvenile justice system, in part, to avoid the effects of labelling. It followed closely the development of the Chicago Area Project in the early 1930s (Shaw and McKay, ) and was a predecessor to delinquency prevention programmes in the 1950s and 1960s (Welsh and Pfeffer, ).…”

Benefit-Cost Analysis of Crime Prevention Programs

“…Important in our decision to focus exclusively on these three strategies is their shared emphasis on addressing the underlying causes or motivations that lead to a criminal event or a life of crime. Also, each strategy operates outside of the confines of the criminal justice system, representing an alternative, perhaps even a socially progressive, way to reduce crime (Welsh and Farrington 2012;Welsh and Pfeffer 2013).…”