Karen Evans, Crime Prevention: A Critical Introduction
| Published date | 01 December 2011 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0004865811420027b |
| Author | Garner Clancey |
| Date | 01 December 2011 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
human sexuality, violence and crime, activists and advocates in the field of sexual mino-
rities, as well as officials in the criminal justice system.
Samuel Muchoki
Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society, La Trobe University, Melbourne,
Australia. Email: smmuchoki@students.latrobe.edu.au
Karen Evans, Crime Prevention: A Critical Introduction, Sage: London, 2010, 224 pp.: ISBN
9781847870681, AU$53.95 (pbk)
This book provides a forensic-like analysis of crime prevention policies and practices
(broadly defined) in the United Kingdom in recent decades. The New Labour project
and period of government is the central period of analysis (1997 to 2010, the year of
publication). The dizzying array of laws, policies, announcements, appointments,
launches and departmental and ministerial changes heralded during the reign of New
Labour are systematically logged and critiqued. The impact of the Crime and Disorder
Act 1998, the Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003, the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security
Act 2001 and the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, amongst other legisla-
tive reforms, receive considerable attention and analysis.
Evans highlights agendas and reforms associated with local crime prevention part-
nerships, the anti-social behaviour phenomenon, racism, hate crime, border protection,
immigration, serious and organised crime, knife crime and anti-terrorism, building a
picture of a government firmly committed to responsibilization strategies managed cen-
trally. A host of examples are provided to demonstrate these tendencies and to confirm
the ‘punitive populism’ which could be considered a hallmark of the New Labour terms
of government.
By presenting a searing and sustained critique of crime prevention policies and prac-
tices in the United Kingdom, Evans has provided a timely contribution to analysis and
discussions of crime prevention. This text will make a useful contribution to introduc-
tory criminological courses. It sounds alarm bells for practitioners engaged in the many
facets of crime prevention work and should be mandatory reading for policy makers
engaged in crime prevention and criminal justice fields.
While Crime Prevention: A Critical Introduction does make a useful contribution to
discussion and scholarship in this area, the strict focus on the United Kingdom means
that its relevance to the Australian and New Zealand contexts is questionable. The
different political, government, social, economic, cultural and geographic contexts of
the Australian and New Zealand jurisdictions reduce the direct relevance of many of the
observations. Parallels could be drawn between particular governmental practices oper-
ating across these jurisdictions, but closer analysis and inspection inevitably reveals local
interpretation, adaptation and divergence. In this sense, a strength of the deep and
close analysis of various developments in the United Kingdom undermines its broader
relevance to other jurisdictions (especially those operating federal systems of
government).
446 Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology 44(3)
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