Chapter Analysis: Neighborhood Crime Prevention

Assignment 2: Chapters 3, 4, and 5 Chapter three begins the chapter by focusing in on the many types of evaluation that there are for measuring crime and then the chapter continues on and gives a detail description about the theories and measurements in evaluation. The word evaluation in the chapter “refers to investigating the usefulness of some exercise or phenomenon; the goal is to understand implementation of the intervention and the impact of the initiative (Lab 36).” The three types of evaluation used are impact evaluation, process evaluation, and cost-benefit evaluation. Impact, also known as outcome, evaluation tends to focus on what changes occur after the introduction of the policy or program. This evaluation does pose some intriguing
In addition, the “conflicting evidence concerning the influence of physical features on crime may be due to conflicting levels of social cohesion, community atmosphere,…and other intervening variables that are unaccounted for (Lab 84).” It is shown that a wide range of activities demonstrate that crime prevention relies on a number of approaches and cannot be left to one basic set of ideas. Neighborhood watch is one embodiment of social control in a neighborhood. The evaluation of neighborhood crime prevention, measures “the impact these activities have on crime and fear of crime…and the impact of neighborhood organizing on intervening factors (Lab 90).” In this chapter the evaluations examined are the change in the intermediate factors, crime and fear of crime. Usually crime prevention programs “report positive results, such as neighborhood improvements, and assume that these are signs of increased community cohesion and territoriality (Lab 91).” In regards to crime when individuals know each other little impact will occur, but crimes that occur between strangers will experience a reduction because of neighborhood watch
“The key to successful crime prevention activities appears to lie in the level of program implementation (Lab 96).” Most of all, different background characteristics of the target communities…and varying evaluation designs also have an impact on the results (Lab 96).” For the best results of neighborhood crime prevention citizen participation and support is needed. “Members of community crime prevention programs…are more often male middle-to-upper-income homeowners who are highly educated, white, and live in single-family dwellings (Lab 102).” Research indicates that participation in crime prevention groups is related to levels of participation of others groups. Participation in crime prevention is a problematic issue for program organizers due to the fact that “prompting people to become active guardians is the goal of neighborhood watch and crime prevention (Lab 105).” There are five problematic assumptions underlying neighborhood watch programs that were addressed in this chapter. One of the assumptions is that “neighborhood watch can be easily implemented on a large scale to provide citizens with an opportunity for participation in crime prevention activities (Lab 106).” There is a possible impact of neighborhood watch and community crime prevention that is unproven in the areas and with the populations where the greatest margin for