Introduction: Crime Prevention by Exclusion: Setting the Scene

That preventing crime is usually a worthwhile endeavour is uncontroversial. But, how we should go about preventing it is a matter of dispute. According to some views, crime prevention should consist of attempting to change offenders’ disposition towards committing crimes, altering the social structures said to (at least partly) cause crime, or by penological means. However, since the idea was first made popular by Ronald Clarke and others in the 1970s and 1980s (Clarke, 1980; Mayhew, Clarke, Sturman, & Hough, 1976), criminologists, social scientists, and practitioners have become increasingly interested in ways of preventing crime by manipulating the specific opportunities or incentives for crime. This approach to crime prevention, which has come to be known as Situational Crime Prevention (SCP), includes a myriad of techniques. For example, it includes measures that attempt to: make it harder for potential offenders to gain control over their targets; ensure that offenders will not accrue benefits from committing a crime; remove the objects of prospective crimes; make it more likely that offences will be detected by means of surveillance; and much more (Clarke, 2009; Freilich & Newman, 2017)