Primary, Secondary, Tertiary Prevention
Definition
A public-health framework applied to crime: primary targets the whole population, secondary targets individuals or communities at elevated risk, tertiary targets known offenders to prevent reoffending.
- Framework origin
- Public-health prevention model
- Primary target
- Whole population
- Secondary target
- At-risk individuals or communities
- Tertiary target
- Known offenders, to prevent reoffending
Common questions
What is an example of a secondary crime-prevention intervention?+
Mentoring or diversion programmes aimed at young people already showing early risk indicators, such as school exclusion or contact with the youth justice system, but who have not yet been convicted, are typical secondary-level interventions.
How does tertiary prevention differ from punishment?+
Tertiary prevention specifically targets known offenders with measures aimed at reducing further offending, such as rehabilitation programmes or supervised reintegration, rather than imposing a sanction for its own sake; the two can overlap in practice but serve different stated purposes.
Related terms
- 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...
- 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...
- Displacement
- The relocation of crime following a prevention intervention. Can take five forms: territorial (to another place), temporal (to another time), target (to...
- 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...
- Social Crime Prevention
- Strategies that target the developmental, social, and environmental conditions that produce offending, rather than the immediate situational opportunity. Operates upstream of any...