A quantitative study of Prince Albert’s crime/risk reduction approach to community safety (original) (raw)
Related papers
2012
Over the past few decades, there has been a shift in crime control discourses, from an almost exclusive focus on traditional criminal justice objectives and practices, to attention to 'community' and a range of strategies that seek to prevent crime and increase safety. Overall, evaluations of the community mobilization approach to crime prevention and safety conclude that these initiatives have generally demonstrated limited long-term impacts on 'crime' and safety at the local level. Through the 'what works' lens, the limits of the approach have typically been attributed to implementation challenges related to outreach and mobilization, and inadequate resourcing. Through a more critical lens, using studies on governmentality as a starting point, this study examines the mechanisms through which crime prevention and community safety became thinkable as sites of governance in Canada, and more specifically within the Community Development Framework (CDF) in Ottawa (ON). To this end, I conducted an ethnography using a triangulation of data collection methods, including extensive fieldwork and direct participant observation within the CDF. The findings of this ethnography describe in detail how the CDF emerged and unfolded (from 2008 to 2010) from a variety of perspectives. These findings show that the CDF encountered a number of common challenges associated with program implementation and community-based evaluation. However, the lack of progress made towards adhering to CDF principles and reaching CDF goals cannot be reduced to these failures alone. The CDF highlights the importance of locating the community approach to crime prevention within its wider socio-political context, and of paying attention to its numerous 'messy actualities'. These include the dynamics and repercussions of: governing at a distance and of the dispersal of social control; the neoliberal creation and responsibilization of choicemakers; relations of power, knowledge and the nature of expertise; the messiness of the notion of 'community'; bureaucratic imperatives and professional interests; the words versus deeds of community policing; and processes relevant to resistance within current arrangements. iii
Situational crime prevention and Public Safety Canada’s crime-prevention programme
Security Journal, 2017
This study examines the work undertaken by Canada's National Crime Prevention Centre (NCPC) under the auspices of the Public Safety Canada. NCPC operates with a social development approach to preventing crime, focussing largely on small pilot projects that work with at-risk youth. We suggest that this is a rather narrow definition of crime prevention and that it may not necessarily be an optimal strategy for all crime preventions in Canada. In particular, many international crime and safety organizations suggest the need for integrated approaches in crime prevention. In addition, there is an array of evidence-based situational crime prevention (SCP) strategies from which Canada might benefit. SCP has a history of success in designing out a wide range of crimes from credit card fraud to car theft and burglary. It is proposed that, at minimum, a more inclusive crime-prevention programme that incorporates SCP would produce a significant net benefit to the safety of Canadians.
Introduction to the Special Issue on Crime Prevention Within the Alberta Context
International Journal of Child, Youth and Family Studies, 2013
International Journal of Child, Youth and Family Studies is distinctive on a number of levels. First, not all the articles speak directly to families and/or children, as is the case with virtually all articles that appear in this journal. But they do all speak to the issue of crime prevention that directly and/or indirectly impacts families, children, and the community at large. Second, the articles were all funded by the Mount Royal University Centre for Criminology and Justice Research (CCJR) through a grant that was received from the Ministry of Justice and Attorney General of the Province of Alberta. The CCJR represents the first Centre of its type in Alberta. Third, in addition to being funded solely through the same organization, the articles all represent an effort to bridge theory and practice and speak to the importance of exploring and supporting alternatives to conventional criminal justice response mechanisms. The CCJR officially opened its doors for business in January of 2010. The purpose of the Centre is to provide independently conducted, evidence-informed research involving qualitative and/or quantitative analysis. The CCJR was also created in an effort to provide faculty and students with research opportunities. The idea of such an approach is to help ensure that community agencies and organizations can and will make decisions and implement policies that are in the best interest of their success and sustainability. In a time when there is an increasing call for evidence-based or evidence-informed policy, the CCJR is in a unique position to offer such a broad-based service.
Explaining the Effectiveness of Community-Based Crime Prevention Practices
2016
Regional Evidence Papers are an output of the ELLA Programme. They contain an overview of regional evidence, as well as original data collection and analysis, on a particular research topic. A pair of Regional Evidence Papers are produced on each topic, one focused on Latin America and one on Africa, using a common research question and design. This Regional Evidence Paper is paired with a sister paper whose title is Beyond Domestic Violence Laws in Latin America: Challenges for Protection Services for Survivors, authored by Fundar in Mexico. Based on this two regional papers, a Comparative Evidence Paper is constructed, comparing the experiences of the two regions, in order to support interregional lesson-learning. All publications can be found in the ELLA programme website. ABOUT THE AUTHORS* The authors work at the University of Ibadan. Ayobami Ojebode is the Head of Department of Communication and Language Arts at Ibadan. His expertise is in Media Studies, Research Methods, Violence and Political Systems. Babatunde Raphael Ojebuyi is a lecturer at Ibadan and conducts research in Media Studies, Reading as Communication, and Development Communication. N. J. Onyechi Onyechi is a lecturer at Ibadan. She specialises in Media Studies, and Development Communication with special focus on Governance, Youth and Women Health. Oyewole Oladapo is a doctoral student in the Department of Communication and Language Arts, University of Ibadan. His areas of interest are Social Media, Political Communication and Development. O. J. Oyedele is a doctoral student in the Department of Communication and Language Arts, University of Ibadan. His areas of interest are development communication, Climate Change Communication and Media Studies. I. A. Fadipe is a doctoral student in the Department of Communication and Language Arts, University of Ibadan. His research interests are on Gender and Cultural Studies. ABOUT THE ELLA PROGRAMME ELLA, which stands for Evidence and Lessons from Latin America, is a south-south knowledge and exchange programme that mixes research, exchange and learning to inspire development policies and practices that are grounded in evidence about what works in varied country contexts. The programme has been designed and is coordinated by Practical Action Consulting (PAC) Latin America, in line with the objectives agreed with the funder, the UK Department for International Development (DFID), UK Aid. The Institute for Development Studies (IDS), Sussex University, UK, supports on research design, methods and outputs. To learn more about ELLA go to our website, where you can also browse our other publications on violence and citizen security and other ELLA development issues. *The views expressed in in this paper are those of the author(s), and do not necessarily reflect the views of the ELLA programme. Cover photo: City in Nigeria Credit: World Bank Explaining the Effectiveness of Community-Based Crime Prevention Practices also communitised the role of the state: they stepped in to fund the police by supplying their vehicles with fuel, constructing police posts, repairing police patrol vans and giving police officers monetary incentives so that the communities can be well patrolled and protected. They also supplied intelligence and facilitated the arrest of suspects. The officers reciprocated by patrolling regularly and responding rapidly to distress calls from the community associations. A comparison of two CBCP practices-one effective, the other not-showed that effectiveness depended on the ability of the community associations to deploy the strategy summed up above. Through an exploration of the contexts, we discovered that a conjuncture of cultural and contextual factors impacted on the ability of the community associations to apply those three strategies. Policies seeking to strengthen CBCP must (i) support communitisation strategies and (ii) create a delicate balance between protecting citizens' rights without weakening the strength of the community associations. An approach that seeks citizens' interpretation of their rights and privileges is important in drafting such policies. Policies also need to recognize that in some contexts even such strategies will have limited efficacy.
International Journal of Child, Youth and Family Studies
This article discusses and demonstrates the discrepancies between ideal, theoretical program evaluation processes and real world evaluation practice, which is constrained by numerous and varying factors. The article describes the real world experience of Mount Royal University’s Centre for Criminology and Justice Research researchers in conducting an evaluation of the Police and Crisis Team (PACT) in Grande Prairie, Alberta, including a Social Return on Investment (SROI) analysis. PACT, which partners an Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officer with a mental health professional, represents a blend of secondary and tertiary crime prevention and attempts to diminish crime in the community by addressing the risk factors of individuals with mental health concerns (creating trust with individuals, increasing awareness of resources, and decreasing stigmatization in the community). PACT also specifically targets those individuals with mental health issues who are in contact with the la...
Canadian Journal of Sociology, 2008
While criminologists have made the case that a "punitive turn," spurred on by penal populism, is being witnessed in several Western countries, some have argued that Canada is the exception to this trend. But recent developments in Winnipeg, Manitoba suggest that a made-in-America crime control strategyzero-tolerance policing-has been imported into the Winnipeg context to combat the pressing problems of drugs, gangs, and violence in inner-city communities. Can this development be interpreted as evidence of a punitive turn? Has penal populism found its way into a Canadian jurisdiction? Drawing on interviews with inner-city residents, businesspeople, and community workers, we show that people in Winnipeg's inner city have a sophisticated understanding of the causes of social problems in their neighbourhoods and a very clear vision of what they believe the role of police in the inner city should be: one in which the police work with the community as part of a wider effort of community mobilization. These findings do not support the view that Winnipeg is a Canadian exception to the punitive turn. Rather, they suggest the presence of community resistance to aggressive "get tough" strategies of crime control, and of the potential to fashion radically different solutions to the complex problems confronting inner-city communities. Résumé. Bien que les criminologues aient établi le bien-fondé qu'un «virage punitif», incité par un populisme pénal, se manifeste dans plusieurs pays occi