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Situational crime prevention (SCP)

Definition

A strategy targeting specific crime types by modifying the immediate environment to reduce opportunity. SCP operates through five categories of technique: increasing effort, increasing risk, reducing rewards, reducing provocations, and removing excuses. Associated primarily with Ron Clarke and Derek Cornish.

Related terms

Burglary
The offence of entering a building or structure without authorisation with intent to commit an offence inside. Distinguished from theft by the...
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...
Displacement
The relocation of crime following a prevention intervention. Can take five forms: territorial (to another place), temporal (to another time), target (to...
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...
Routine activity theory
A criminological framework developed by Cohen and Felson (1979) that explains property crime as the product of three converging elements: a motivated...

Explained in

  • Property Crime and Economic OffendingA strategy targeting specific crime types by modifying the immediate environment to reduce opportunity. SCP operates through five categories of technique: incr...

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