This week we hear about a man in crime prevention who's had a first-hand experience of villainy and his reflections on what it was like. Adam Graycar is Director of the Australian Institute of Criminology in Canberra, and this is how it happened. A few weeks ago I came home to find that we had been burgled. Somebody had forced a window in an easily accessible but secluded courtyard, and got in. When we look at the bigger picture, we know that most places have no crime, and most crime is highly concentrated in a relatively small number of places.
Some shops have no robberies, while a few have lots.
A few entertainment venues have a lot of problems, but most don't have any at all. Even in high burglary neighbourhoods, most residences have no burglaries, while a few suffer from repeat burglaries, again and again. Understanding clustering and repeat victimisation and crime hot spots is very important in developing preventive measures. Blocking criminal opportunities take place by understanding place, its design and layout, and strategies that are appropriate for houses, for flats, shops, warehouses, factories, public transport, parks, pubs and so on. Over the millennia, the way humans have arranged their living space has had a strong influence on social, on political and economic life.