Crime Prevention — A New Approach
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X6704001002 |
| Date | 01 October 1967 |
| Published date | 01 October 1967 |
| Author | George Twist |
| Subject Matter | Article |
GEORGE
TWIST,
LL.M.
Chief Constable of Bristol
URI~IE
PREVENTION
- A
NEW
APPROAUH
Talk to many a police crime prevention officer, and you will
find a harassed and frustrated individual. The public is tired of
being preached at, and knows the slogans and catch-phrases almost
by heart. The press is reluctant to repeat the same old seasonal
admonitions that have no news value, and it is reasonable to sup-
pose that
the"
hidden figures" are largely made up of crimes that
the careless victims are too tired or ashamed of to report.
Crime prevention officers rack their brains for new ideas at their
regular exhibitions, which at best, have only a short-term effect,
and in desperation have widened their approach to include an
"Open
Day"
and
"The
Police at
Home"
atmosphere.
With most preventable crime continuing to rise everywhere, it
is particularly baffling not to know the effect of the efforts made
and the money spent, or indeed whether or not we are on a com-
pletely wrong tack.
Beginnings
Crime prevention has had a strange history. In 1748, Henry
Fielding, the Bow Street magistrate, considered that a strong police,
active public co-operation and the removal of the causes of crime
were urgently necessary, and advertised in the press that the public
should report all crimes to him, with, if possible, descriptions of
the offenders.
After his death in 1754, his equally famous half-brother, John,
in a pamphlet on the need for a police force, said,
"It
is much
better to prevent even one man from being a rogue than appre-
hending and bringing 40 to justice ".
The Metropolitan Police Act of 1829, followed an enunciation
of nine principles for the police, of which three are especially .im-
portant:-
1. To
prevent
crime and disorder as an alternative to their repression by
military force and severity of legal punishment.
2. To maintain at all times a relationship with the public
that
gives
reality to the historic tradition
that
the police are the public, the
police being only members of the public who
are
paid to give full
time attention to do duties which are incumbent on every citizen.
3. To recognize
that
the test of police efficiency is the absence of crime
and disorder,
and
not
the visible evidence of police action.
In the next hundred years prevention seems to have been based
on the deterrent effect of the daily presence of a uniformed police,
October 1967
oM3
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