Posted by Guest Blogger on December 1st, 2011 — Posted in Crime Prevention
The following is a guest blog post sent to us by Marina Salsbury
College Crime: Preventable With Awareness
While most parents and prospective students regard college as four years of final educational preparation for adult life, in reality college campuses are also often targets for crimes against property and persons. Students in schools big and small become victims of college crimes, many that quietly get covered up because college administrations are extremely sensitive to bad press. However, there’s no need to attend an online college to keep safe. For concerned students and parents awareness is the best way to prevent college crime.
Common Crimes
In terms of violent crime, most college incidents occur when victims is traveling or standing alone in a dark area or at night (not including sexual attacks). By simply avoiding being alone and instead traveling with someone else, students can drastically reduce the chances of being targeted. Students should also pay attention to campus-wide alerts or notices about local crime. By heeding news about suspects, students can also avoid becoming victims of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Additionally, many students become victims of crime simply because they drink too much alcohol. Students who become heavily intoxicated or black out leave themselves largely vulnerable to whoever is around them. Rapes, assaults, and pranks all befall students who are too drunk to know what’s going on or to prevent the attacks. By simply exercising moderation in their drinking, students can avoid placing themselves in these sorts of situations.
Property theft is common on campuses as well, particularly with fashionable electronics. Smartphones, computers, and stereo systems all make great targets for thieves. Students are better served being discrete about their belongings or keeping valuable items securely hidden when not in use. If it’s not seen, the property can’t be much of a target to opportunistic criminals.
Situational Awareness
The biggest defense students have is to maintain situational awareness. This means always being aware of what’s going on around you. It’s not a paranoid state of mind, it’s paying attention to conditions, your immediate environment, and people near you. It also involves not placing yourself in situations where you will have a difficult time protecting yourself.
For many students, there’s an illusion of safety in college. Crime occurs out in towns and cities, not on college campuses. Unfortunately, this uncritical misconception repeatedly leads students to place themselves in bad situations where someone can take advantage.
Be Friendly, but Don’t Trust Everyone
Students want to trust each other like family. They’re spending two thirds of their days with roommates, friends, and romantic interests when not in classes. It’s easy to be trusting of anyone who looks like a student on campus. Instead, students need to remember to be cautious of people trying to get close. Being friendly is fine, but don’t trust just anyone with your safety or well-being. Again, safety comes with being proactive, not waiting to react when trouble arrives.
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Posted by Scott on April 27th, 2008 — Posted in Crime Prevention
I made a blog post back in March about the fact that education prevents violent crime and victimization. Today, I read a research brief about education as crime prevention from the OSI. Here are some excerpts:
“[R]esearch shows that quality education is one of the most effective forms of crime prevention. Educational skills can help deter young people from committing criminal acts and can greatly decrease the likelihood that people will return to crime after release from prison.”
“There is a strong link between low levels of education and high rates of criminal activity…”
“According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, there is an inverse relationship between recidivism rates and education. The more education received, the less likely an individual is to be re-arrested or re-imprisoned.”
“The RAND Corporation, a public policy think tank based in California, recently released a study showing that crime prevention is more costeffective than building prisons. Of all crime prevention methods, education is the most costeffective.”
The fact that providing education to people causes them to commit less violent crime and victimization seems both obvious and common-sense to me. But I still like to consult the research.
What do you think?
12 Comments »
Posted by Scott on March 12th, 2008 — Posted in Crime Prevention
I generally dislike, mistrust, and resent police in general more than the average person. When someone talks of cops, I think of the street cops going around bullying kids and attacking non-violent marijuana smokers. But I support the police–or all people for that matter–who attempt to stop violent criminals, such as rapists and murders. Of course, I don’t interact with honest homicide detectives as much I interact with angry traffic cops who will throw me in jail over a bad taillight if I don’t suck up enough.
Regardless, I think a police force must work most effectively at the most local level. At the most local level, the police organization can adapt to the local environment better. Additionally, locally focused officers and agents can more fully get to know the local community and its people.
I also think police forces would work much more effectively with a lot more funding. Obviously, the administration could benefit from more funds. Most importantly, they could put the funding towards paying police officers much, much more. You get what you pay for. With better pay, they could hire police officers with much more education and credentials. Additionally, they could put much stricter rules against police officers who receive complaints and such.
Unfortunately, two main obstacles obstruct the implementation of better funding for police forces. Firstly, bureaucracies, such as government-run police forces, make money by wasting money. Secondly, taxpayers will resist large increases in funding, which will mean the funding will always fall up short.
I see a possible solution as the creation of private police. By that I mean local, non-governmental organizations could form to stop and catch violent criminals. I would only want them in charge of violent crime. I feel only violent crime warrants any danger in allowing a private organization to use force.
Of course, even now most private organizations and citizens technically have the legal power to forcefully stop violent criminals, so it wouldn’t change that much. For example, if I see a rapists attack a woman, even the government has granted me the legal right to forcefully stop him if I so wish.
We simply need effective organizations to form for the specific purpose of fighting violent crime. For that to happen, they need funding. To avoid the flaws of bureaucracy, I think we need to balance the funding with effectiveness. In other words, I think we can pay the private police a certain amount for each violent criminal they catch who gets convicted. The worse the crime, the higher the bounty.
I doubt taxpayers would mind paying for the actual catching of violent criminals as opposed to pointlessly throwing money at a bureaucratic police force. Nonetheless, I suggest making the violent criminals pay for it. Let it act as a fine; instead of going to the state, the fine goes to the private policing organization that caught the violent criminal.
This is all just a rough idea and not a formal proposal. So I really do want to know what you readers think. Please leave comments.
Also, I want to specify that I would only want private policing organizations used to enforce violent crime, such as rape, murder, sexual assault, battery and so forth. I have no interest in using the government to hire people to go around violently catching non-violent criminals; the risks of that do not make up for the benefits, in my opinion.
Finally, I think we need to make the policing organizations follow strict regulations so that they do not use unnecessary or excessive force. They would need to be held strictly accountable for misconduct and false arrests. We want to make sure we do not create a monster worse than the monsters we have created it to catch.
What do you think?
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Posted by Scott on March 6th, 2008 — Posted in Crime Prevention
Many states spend more on prisons than they do on education. But prisons do not seem to do that much to prevent violent crime and victimization. For one, criminals only go to prison after having committed the crime. Additionally, the prisons do not reform the criminals, but just release most of them after a while. If anything, most people probably come out of prison more dangerous than they go in. Worse yet, many of the people have been put in prison for victimless crimes.
If the people in society want to truly reduce violent crime and victimization, then they need to start investing more in education. Research has shown that education significantly reduces the probability of incarceration and arrest. When children receive quality education, they have a much less likely of a chance of ever committing a criminal act of violence or victimization. When convicts receive education, they re-offend much less often.
Collectively speaking, I believe the people in society can most effectively prevent violent crime and victimization by investing greatly in education. I bet we would save more money than we would spend. When investing in education, we would probably save all the money that we would otherwise have to spend on hunting down criminals. Besides, increased education benefits society in many other ways.
Basically, I believe that education prevents violent crime and victimization more cost-effectively than police and prisons.
What do you think?
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Posted by Scott on January 26th, 2008 — Posted in Crime Prevention
I just read some crime prevention tips from the Durham Police Department. They geared the tips mostly to businesses, but the tips can help most people.
I want to mention two of the tips in particular.
Firstly, when recommending what to do after a robbery, they recommend to not talk to witnesses until after the police take official statements. I think many people may overlook this. If you talk to the witnesses first, then their testimony becomes much less valuable. A witness testimony can only fully corroborate another if it developed independently.
Secondly, they recommend to make sure to print the address of your building clearly on the front and back. Doing that will make it so police can respond to problems more quickly and easily. If emergency response teams have trouble seeing your address, it will delay them when they to find your building when called for an emergency.
What do you think?
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Posted by Scott on January 5th, 2008 — Posted in Crime Prevention
If you want to make crime prevention your profession, then you might consider going to school for an economic crime degree. Schools such as Utica College offer various courses and degrees related to economic crime prevention.
Economic crime continues to develop with technology. Thieves can find various ways to work with credit cards, electronic banking, credit, and computerized economics. New and different technology results in new and different crime.
Luckily, researchers study and keep track of all the new methods used by scam artists and new age thieves.
What do you think?
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Posted by Scott on December 31st, 2007 — Posted in Crime Prevention
I just read an interesting study and report about the monetary value of saving high risk youth before they turn to crime. You can read the abstract:
There is growing interest in crime prevention through early youth interventions; yet, the standard United States response to the crime problem, particularly among juveniles, has been to increase the use and resource allocation allotted toward punishment and incapacitation and away from prevention and treatment. At the same time, longitudinal studies of delinquency and crime have repeatedly documented a strong link between past and future behavior and have identified a small subset of offenders who commit a large share of criminal offenses. These findings suggest that if these offenders can be identified early and correctly and provided with prevention and treatment resources early in the life course, their criminal activity may be curtailed. While researchers have studied these offenders in great detail, little attention has been paid to the costs they exert on society. This paper provides estimates of the cost of crime imposed on society by high risk youth. Our approach follows and builds upon the early framework and basic methodology developed by Cohen (1998), by using new estimates of the costs of individual crimes, ones that are more comprehensive and that significantly increased the monetary cost per crime. We also use new estimates on the underlying offending rate for high risk juvenile offenders.
I like seeing studies like that. We can use scientific estimates to create effective policies. However, it seems common sense that it would cost less to prevent crime, violence, and victimization from happening in the first place than it would to only react after people have already turned to a life of crime.
Police, courts, jails, and prisons all cost a lot of money. Worse yet, those methods usually do not stop the convict from committing more crime, except when the convict goes to prison for life.
In contrast, we can fix the problem before it gets out of hand by helping at-risk youth before they turn to a life of crime. In analogy, you can save money by buying a simple oil change rather than waiting for your car to run out of oil and break down. Like I said, it seems like common sense.
What do you think?
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Posted by Scott on December 29th, 2007 — Posted in Crime Prevention
You may think of crime prevention as a major theme of this blog, but I actually do not want to stop crime in general. I could care less about crime in general.
I want to stop violence and victimization. I want to defend innocent people from victimization. But I do not want to see victimless crimes enforced. I do not want any laws outlawing victimless behavior, and I do not want to see such laws enforced.
The creation and enforcement of victimless crimes creates more victims rather than protecting people from violent crime and victimization. The government victimizes the “offenders” of the victimless crimes by offensively attacking them. Additionally, it makes victims out of the taxpayers who have to pay for offensive law enforcement.
If the government wants to rob innocent people with taxation, it could at least use the tax dollars to defend people from violence and victimization rather than wage authoritarian wars on victimless crimes. For example, the “war on drugs” costs the United States hundreds of billions of dollars per year, and it entails such expensive things as throwing non-violent druggies in jail even when the drug-users never hurt anyone. The government could have used all that money to stop victimization, such as rape, murder, vandalism and assault.
I want to protect people from violence and victimization. I do not want authoritarian governments to enforce authoritarian laws. I do not want to forcefully stop people from engaging in victimless behaviors. I only support the use of force to defensively protect a person from an offensive attacker or victimizer.
What do you think?
2 Comments »
Posted by Scott on December 26th, 2007 — Posted in Crime Prevention
I just read an informative article about the ideas of Irvin Waller, a criminologist who founded the International Centre for Crime Prevention in Montreal and who wrote the book Less Law, More Order: The Truth about Reducing Crime
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I have not read his book yet, but I can tell you that Irvin Waller basically contends that society can reduce crime and protect victims more effectively by tackling the root causes of crime rather than by hiring more police and making stricter laws with longer sentences. For example, he say funds will do more to prevent crime if we put them towards education, family assistance, and helping at-risk youth stay in school and get job training.
I agree. However, I think both can help. Police and long prison sentences do not do much until after an act of crime has occurred, but they do at least prevent the criminal from victimizing anyone else. Having stronger incarceration systems and increasing funds for law enforcement does not stop us from also increasing funding for crime prevention. We can do both.
Some may argue that limited funds would limit us greatly. However, I have already addressed the issue of funding in my previous blog post entitled Funding Security. In that post, I suggested that we fund law enforcement and incarceration by billing convicts. I also suggested that we stop wasting resources on victimless crimes, and instead use all of our crime-related resources to stop victimizers and prevent violent crime and victimization.
What do you think?
2 Comments »
Posted by Scott on December 7th, 2007 — Posted in Crime Prevention
While looking on http://www.schoolsinstlouis.com/ I noticed that they had information about criminal justice degree programs. There are many different options for someone going to school for criminal justice. For example, you could study criminology or computer crime.
I generally focus my efforts on non-governmental activism. Nonetheless, people can also work to stop violent crime and victimization by obtaining a career in criminal justice. Some of these people provide the research used to create programs and policy to stop crime. Others actually work in the organizations that carry out those policies, from court houses to rehabilitation centers.
There are many ways to help reduce violent crime and victimization. Relevant education greatly empowers a person to effect change in society. If you want to help put a stop to violent crime and victimization, consider getting an education in criminal justice.
What do you think?
1 Comment »
Posted by Scott on December 7th, 2007 — Posted in Crime Prevention
I just read an excellent blog post by Bob Betzen about real crime prevention. While explaining the failure of incarceration to rehabilitate criminals, he says a line that had me almost fall out of my seat in excited agreement: He writes, “Finishing a sentence and walking out of prison is like graduating from crime school.”
Bob Betzen goes on to say that we need to intervene in the lives of at risk children before they become violent criminals. I have frequently made similar points about the need to prevent violence and victimization before an incident occurs.
What do you think?
2 Comments »
Posted by Scott on December 3rd, 2007 — Posted in Crime Prevention
As a society, we have a desire to drastically reduce violent crime and victimization. Unfortunately, the war on crime has not resulted in much success.
I think we can most effectively reduce violent crime and victimization through prevention.
We do need to use physical force to defend people when a criminal attacks or attempts to attack a person. We do need to detain and lock up these violent offenders. However, forceful defense and incarceration cannot solve the problem alone.
First of all, forceful defense and incarceration only do anything after an act of victimization or an attempted act of victimization has already occurred. Beyond that, the incarceration system does not rehabilitate offenders, and in many ways cannot rehabilitate them. Removing someone from free society and locking them up in an unpleasant jail with other criminals for an extended period of time obviously will not rehabilitate them. Criminals often come out of prison worse than they went into prison. Most of the inmates released from prison get rearrested within 3 years.
To stop violent crime and victimization, we need to prevent the original crime from happening in the first place. We can try to do that in many ways. For example, we can reduce the conditions that help cause criminality, such as poverty or lack of education. We can increase psychological observation and treatment of people, namely at a young age in schools.
What do you think? How do you suggest we prevent violent crime and prevent people from turning into violent criminals?
6 Comments »
