Young argues that the community can be an effective body within which to attempt to prevent crime because it can selectively and precisely target high risk areas within its own subcultural context (Young, 1995 at 3). Community initiative and involvement provide the framework through which crime prevention strategies can be designed and implemented.

The Resolving Conflict Creatively Program (RCCP) operates in public schools throughout the nation (Young, 1995 at 16), and uses peers to facilitate a mediation process as a means of resolving conflict in a non-violent manner. The Neighborhood Justice Center (NJC), which involves community resolution of disputes through mutual problem-solving techniques to prevent escalation of conflict into violence, provides another example of a community crime prevention program.

Both programs seek to deal with the problems and/or conflicts which are unique to the community in which they arise. Then the programs attempt to tailor solutions to fit these particular areas that need addressing.

An international, non-governmental organization, the International Center for the Prevention of Crime (ICPC) collects and disseminates information pertaining to the prevention of crime. "It was established to harness the world's crime prevention know-how to reduce crime, increase community safety and enhance civic vitality" (ICPC web page).

Community crime prevention programs address conflicts in a community--and the root causes of those conflicts--so that they can be deal with in positive ways before it ever escalates into crime.

Some see violence not only "as a result of a breakdown in community structure" (Young, 1995 at 1), but also as a force which contributes to the fraying of the community's social fabric, "weakening social ties or interfering with community living" (2).

Community crime prevention programs acknowledge the role that community must assume if it is to provide an effective means of reducing crime. Restorative justice advocates posit that while government is responsible for maintaining order, the community is truly responsible for fostering peace within itself (Van Ness and Strong, 1997 at 41). For Van Ness and Strong, peace, unlike order, cannot be imposed.

Buarino-Ghezzi and Klein argue that to establish peace the community must assume a proactive role in maintaining community protection, which is "enhanced through community organization and increased opportunities for cooperative interaction between residents and criminal justice agencies" (Guarino-Ghezzi and Klein, 1997 at 5). Understanding and interaction, they suggest, are the cornerstones of community cohesion.

In addition to community crime prevention programs, government officials have also experimented with ways to become more community orientated. There appear to be benefits to this decentralization and increased community involvement. For example, a program put together by a Neighborhood District Attorney and community police officers, which employed the use of neighbors to keep detailed logs of suspected activities in the neighborhood to help obtain search warrants, falls under the first category of programs (Young, 1995 at 10).

International Center for the Prevention of Crime documents several programs around the world that appear to have significant reductions in the rates of crime. For example, a pre-school program in the United States reduced the proportion of those kids with five arrests when they became adults to just 7%, compared to 35% of adults with similar starts to their lives. This translates into saving $7 in welfare and policing costs for every $1.00 invested in the program.


This document prepared by Christopher Bright. Copyright 1997 by Prison Fellowship International.