Criminology - Situational Crime Prevention

The Tylenon Case Study

• In 1982 seven people dies in Chicagp as a reslt of taking Tylenon poisened with cyanide
• Mass murder? Terroism?
• Perpetrators never caught, motivation never discoved
• Widespread fear
• Significant losses for makers of Tylenol
• Some copycat offences
• Tamper proof packaging quickly introduced when relaunching the product
• US government introduced regulations for packaging of food, drugs and cosmetics
• Two guiding principles: (1) breaks in seal highly visable (2) conveinient for customer

Situational crime prevention

• The art and science of reducing opportunities for crime
• Based on new crime theories: rational choice, routine activity

What is the new focus of new crime theories:

• Crime, not criminality
• Events, not dispostions
• Near, not distant causes of crime
• How crime occurs, not why it happens
• Situational and opportunity factors

Routine Activity Theory

• Cohen and Felson 1979; Felson and Boba (2010)
• An overarching theory or 'metatheory' 
• To explain trends in crime over time - steep rise in postwar crime  and the steep fall in crime in the last 15 years?
• As a metatheory it provides and overaching framework into which other theories fit

Sampson, Eck and Dunham 2010

• Latest version of the crime triangle

Rational…