Skip to content

Diffusion of benefits

Definition

The spread of crime-reduction effects beyond the area or targets directly covered by an intervention. Offenders uncertain about the extent of a prevention measure may also avoid adjacent areas or targets, producing crime falls that exceed the scope of the original measure.

Related terms

25 techniques
Ronald Clarke's classification of situational crime prevention methods into 25 specific techniques organised under five mechanisms: increasing effort, increasing risk, reducing rewards,...
CPTED
Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design. An applied design discipline using natural surveillance (sightlines, lighting), territorial reinforcement (ownership cues), natural access control (barriers,...
Crime script analysis
A method developed by Derek Cornish that maps the sequential steps an offender must complete to commit a particular crime type, from...
Displacement
The relocation of crime following a prevention intervention. Can take five forms: territorial (to another place), temporal (to another time), target (to...
Opportunity structure
The set of environmental, social, and product conditions that make specific crimes more or less easy to commit. Situational prevention works by...

Explained in

  • Situational Crime PreventionThe spread of crime-reduction effects beyond the area or targets directly covered by an intervention. Offenders uncertain about the extent of a prevention meas...

Your journey to becoming a forensic professional starts here.

Practice with mock tests, learn from structured notes, and get your questions answered by a global forensic community, all in one place.