Displacement
Definition
The relocation of crime following a prevention intervention. Can take five forms: territorial (to another place), temporal (to another time), target (to another victim), tactical (using a different method), and type (switching to a different crime). Total displacement would mean no net reduction in crime; research consistently finds displacement is partial at most.
- Concept
- Crime relocation following a prevention intervention
- Forms
- Territorial, temporal, target, tactical, type
- Research finding
- Displacement is typically partial, not total
- Related concept
- Diffusion of benefits (opposite effect)
Common questions
Does displacement mean crime prevention efforts are pointless?+
No. Studies comparing crime before and after an intervention, including in surrounding areas, consistently find only partial displacement, meaning some crime relocates but total crime still falls. Many studies even find a diffusion of benefits, where nearby areas see reduced crime rather than an increase.
Which form of displacement is hardest to detect?+
Tactical and type displacement are harder to detect than territorial displacement because they do not show up in geographic crime statistics for a specific location. An offender who switches from burglary to online fraud after a target-hardening intervention would not appear in local burglary displacement data at all.
How do evaluators rule out displacement when testing a prevention program?+
Evaluators typically compare crime counts in a buffer zone surrounding the target area against a comparable control area, and examine adjacent time periods and offence types. If crime shifts are confined to the treated area with no compensating rise elsewhere, that supports a genuine reduction rather than simple displacement.
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,...
- Burglary
- The offence of entering a building or structure without authorisation with intent to commit an offence inside. Distinguished from theft by the...
- Community Safety Partnership
- A multi-agency governance arrangement that brings together police, local government, health, housing, education, and voluntary bodies to share data and coordinate responses...
- 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...
- Dark Figure of Crime
- The gap between the actual volume of crime and the amount recorded in official statistics. Crimes go unrecorded when victims do not...
- Developmental Crime Prevention
- Interventions targeting risk and protective factors at key life-course stages, particularly early childhood and adolescence, to reduce the probability that an individual...
- Diffusion of Benefits
- The spread of crime-reduction effects beyond the area or targets directly covered by an intervention. Offenders uncertain about the extent of a...
- Hot Products (CRAVED)
- The acronym CRAVED (Concealable, Removable, Available, Valuable, Enjoyable, Disposable) describes the characteristics that make consumer goods attractive theft targets. Developed by Clarke...
- Neighbourhood Regeneration
- Physical, economic, and social improvement of deprived or high-crime areas, including housing renovation, public space design, employment schemes, and community organisation, as...
- Opportunity Structure
- The set of environmental, social, and product conditions that make specific crimes more or less easy to commit. Situational prevention works by...
- Primary, Secondary, Tertiary Prevention
- A public-health framework applied to crime: primary targets the whole population, secondary targets individuals or communities at elevated risk, tertiary targets known...
Explained in these topics
- Property Crime and Economic OffendingThe relocation of offending in response to prevention measures, whether to different places (spatial displacement), times (temporal displacement), targets, met...
- Situational Crime Prevention
- Social Prevention and Community SafetyThe potential movement of crime to adjacent times, places, targets, tactics, or offence types when prevention reduces crime in one specific location or form. A...