Situational Crime Prevention
Knowing what to do starts with knowing what works, and what hasn't. CrimeSolutions helps practitioners and policymakers understand what programs & practices work, are promising, or haven't worked yet.
On this page you can find programs and practices related to Situational Crime Prevention. Select "Search Filters" to narrow down the list by rating, extent of evidence, and many other aspects of the programs or practices. Skip to Practices
CrimeSolutions’ ratings are assigned from standardized reviews of rigorous evaluations and meta-analyses. While we encourage you to learn more about this process, you don’t need to in order to benefit from it. Our clear ratings and profiles can help you determine if a program or category of program is worth pursuing.
| Icon | Rating | Description |
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Effective | Implementing the program, or a program encompassed by the practice, will achieve the intended outcome. |
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Promising | Implementing the program, or a program encompassed by the practice, will achieve the intended outcome. |
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Ineffective | Implementing the program, or a program encompassed by the practice, will not achieve the intended outcome. |
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Negative Effects | Implementing the program, or program encompassed by the practice, will not result in intended outcome(s) and may result in harmful effects. |
Programs
| Title | Evidence Rating | Topics | Summary | RCT | ||
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| Program Profile: Risk-Based Policing Initiative (Kansas City, Missouri) |
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Situational crime prevention, Violent crime, Community policing, Policing strategies, Law enforcement | This program was a place-based crime policing initiative implemented for 1 year to reduce violent crime. Risk-based policing initiatives promote data-informed decisions based on a process of defining the problem, gathering information, and analyzing data. The program is rated Promising. The program resulted in a statistically significant reduction of 22.6 percent in violent crimes in the intervention areas, compared with the comparison areas. Date Posted: |
None | ||
| Program Profile: Police Body-Worn Cameras (Boston, Massachusetts) |
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Arrests, Sensors/Surveillance, Use of force, Law enforcement, Crime prevention, Situational crime prevention, Law enforcement operations, Arrests, Effective Evidence Rating | This involves police officers wearing cameras on their uniforms to improve the civility of their interactions with citizens. The program is rated Effective. There were statistically significant reductions in citizen complaints against police and police use-of-force reports for officers who wore cameras, compared with those who did not, and statistically significant reductions in complaints against control officers in the treatment districts, compared with officers in the untreated districts. Date Posted: |
Randomized Controlled Trial | ||
| Program Profile: Hot Spots Policing in the London Underground (London, UK) |
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Patrol, Situational crime prevention, Policing strategies, Law enforcement, Law enforcement operations, Problem-oriented policing | This policing strategy was designed to deter crime on platforms in high-crime areas of the London Underground. The program is rated Promising. Platforms in the treatment areas had statistically significant reductions in calls for services and crime, relative to the control group, on patrol and nonpatrol days. Date Posted: |
Randomized Controlled Trial | ||
| Program Profile: Online Warning Messages Impact on Desistance From Child Sexual Exploitation Material (Australia) |
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Child pornography, Internet | This intervention displayed online warning messages to Internet users attempting to view barely legal pornography or upload sexual photos of women, to reduce the accessing of child sexual exploitation material online. The program is rated Effective. Individuals in the experimental groups who received the online warning messages were statistically significantly less likely to attempt to enter the websites, compared with individuals who did not receive a warning message. Date Posted: |
Randomized Controlled Trial | ||
| Program Profile: Project Green Light Detroit |
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Surveillance, Sensors/Surveillance, Environmental design, Situational crime prevention, Burglary, Crime prevention, Property crime, Crime, Law enforcement, Law enforcement operations, Equipment and technology | This is a place-based intervention that uses environmental design at high-crime businesses in the city to reduce crime and improve public safety. The program is rated Ineffective. There were no statistically significant effects on disorder occurrences or violent crime. The intervention did result in statistically significant reductions in property crime around treated businesses, compared with matched control businesses, at 1-year postimplementation. Date Posted: |
None | ||
| Program Profile: Milwaukee’s (Wis.) Closed-Circuit Television Camera Program |
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Burglary, Larceny/theft, Motor vehicle theft, Assault, Gun violence, Homicide, Robbery, Sensors/Surveillance, Surveillance, Environmental design, Traffic laws, Traffic law enforcement, Law enforcement operations, Closed Circuit Television (CCTV), Arrests, Equipment and technology | This is a police-operated public surveillance program that seeks to reduce crime and increase crime clearances (i.e., arrests) by installing new closed-circuit television cameras at high-crime, high-traffic intersections in Milwaukee (Wis.). The program is rated Promising. Intersections in intervention areas where new cameras were installed had a statistically significant higher rate of crime clearances for all crime types, compared with intersections in comparison areas. Date Posted: |
None | ||
| Program Profile: Web-Based Sexual Assault Risk Reduction (SARR) for College Women |
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Situational crime prevention, Rape and sexual assault, Violent crime, Crime prevention, Victimization, Campus, Campus Crime, Schools, Substance abuse, Legal substances, Drugs | This was a program for college women who engaged in heavy episodic drinking to provide feedback on their risk perception and resistance to reduce sexual assault. The program is rated Ineffective. Program participants did not statistically significantly differ from those in the control group on measures of incapacitated attempted/completed rape frequency, alcohol-related sexual assault incidents/severity, or use of sexual assault protective behavioral strategies at the 3-month follow-up. Date Posted: |
Randomized Controlled Trial | ||
| Program Profile: Mystery Shop Programs to Reduce Underage Alcohol Sales |
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Alcohol-Related Offenses, Alcohol, Substance abuse, Underage drinking, Situational crime prevention, Legal substances, Drugs | This intervention seeks to increase staff ID checks for the sale of alcoholic beverages at licensed establishments, to help prevent sales to minors. The program is rated Effective. The results were mixed. One study found there was a statistically significant increase in age verification rates resulting from the intervention, whereas a second study found no statistically significant increases in ID-checking rates. Overall, the results suggest the intervention influenced ID-checking rates. Date Posted: |
Randomized Controlled Trial | ||
| Program Profile: Anti-Theft Wraps |
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Larceny/theft, Situational crime prevention | This is a crime prevention technique designed to deter retail theft by wrapping products in a security wire wrap. The program is rated Promising. Treatment group stores that received the intervention experienced a statistically significant drop in the loss of cordless electric drills, compared with control group stores. However, there were no statistically significant differences in the loss of diet supplements or skincare products. Date Posted: |
Randomized Controlled Trial | ||
| Program Profile: Situational Theft Prevention on a University Campus |
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Larceny/theft, Situational crime prevention, Campus, Campus Crime, Schools | This program used a randomized experimental design to test the effects of a situational theft prevention strategy to reduce the theft of property (i.e., dry erase markers labeled with an anti-theft message) from classrooms at a university in Louisiana. The program is rated Promising. Treatment classrooms with labeled markers had a statistically significant lower likelihood of having the markers removed, compared with control classrooms that received markers without the message. Date Posted: |
None |
Practices
Showing 1 to 7 of 7 entries
| Title | Evidence Rating | Topics | Summary | ||||||||
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| Practice Profile: Geographically Focused Policing Initiatives |
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Community policing, Patrol, Problem-oriented policing, Situational crime prevention, Law enforcement, Law enforcement operations | Geographically focused policing initiatives increase the presence and visibility of police officers at specific high-crime locations to significantly reduce crime and disorder. This practice is rated Promising for reducing crime in treatment areas relative to control areas. Date Posted: |
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| Practice Profile: Disorder Policing |
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Alcohol-Related Offenses, Community policing, Patrol, Problem-oriented policing, Environmental design, Situational crime prevention, Policing strategies, Juvenile delinquency, Arrests, Substance abuse, Legal substances, Drugs, Public order offenses | This is a policing strategy to reduce crime and delinquency by focusing efforts on disorderly neighborhood conditions and minor crime offenses. This practice is rated Effective for reducing multiple types of crime and delinquency, and rated Promising for reducing specific types of crimes, including property, violent, and drug and alcohol offenses. Date Posted: |
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| Practice Profile: Alley Gating in the United Kingdom |
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Burglary, Larceny/theft, Situational crime prevention | This is a situational crime-prevention strategy, mainly implemented in the United Kingdom, that uses lockable gates to control access to alleys behind rows of homes, where crimes frequently occur. The practice is rated Promising for reducing property offenses. Date Posted: |
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| Practice Profile: Metal Detectors and Security Screenings at Airports as a Counterterrorism Strategy |
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Counterterrorism includes strategies, policies, practices, interventions, or tactics that are designed to prevent or respond to terrorism. Target hardening at airports is an example of a defensive counterterrorism intervention that is designed to increase the detection of potential terrorism by placing metal detectors in airports and increasing security screening of passengers before they board planes. This practice is rated Promising for significantly reducing events of airplane hijackings.
Date Posted: |
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| Practice Profile: Improved Street Lighting |
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Environmental design, Situational crime prevention | A crime prevention strategy that aims to improve the lighting on streets to reduce crime through modifying and improving environmental measures. The practice is rated Promising for reducing crime and property offenses but rated Ineffective for violent offenses. Date Posted: |
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| Practice Profile: Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) Surveillance |
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Burglary, Larceny/theft, Motor vehicle theft, Sensors/Surveillance, Surveillance, Witnesses, Community policing, Problem-oriented policing, Situational crime prevention, Law enforcement operations, Law enforcement, Violent crime, Equipment and technology | Public surveillance systems include a network of cameras and components for monitoring, recording, and transmitting video images. Public surveillance cameras are designed to reduce both property and personal crime. This practice is rated Promising for reducing overall crime, property crime, and vehicle crime, and rated No Effects for impacting violent crime. Date Posted: |
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| Practice Profile: Neighborhood Watch |
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Burglary, Motor vehicle theft, Community policing, Problem-oriented policing, Property crime, Situational crime prevention, Victimization | Also known as block watch, apartment watch, home watch, and community watch, these programs involve citizens trying to prevent crime in their neighborhood or community. Citizens remain alert for suspicious activities and report those activities to the police. The practice is rated Promising in reducing crime in the control area compared to the experimental area; and rated Ineffective in reducing victimization. Date Posted: |
Showing 1 to 7 of 7 entries