Bureau of Justice Assistance - Center for Program Evaluation and Performance Measurement

What Is Crime Prevention?

There are a variety of crime prevention programs/ strategies that use specific approaches to anticipate, recognize, appraise, and address crime and/or the factors contributing to crime. Crime prevention may be targeted at different levels including the individual, community, family, or particular types of locations. Usually, individual level crime prevention refers to initial avoidance of crime; that is preventing someone from ever committing a crime. These types of crime prevention programs typically target risk factors shown to be related to offending. Sometimes, the term crime prevention is used in reference to programs that are designed to prevent individuals from committing subsequent crimes (i.e., recidivating). Crime prevention programs or strategies focused on the community may target changes in the community infrastructure, culture or physical nature in order to reduce crime. Examples of these types of programs include neighborhood watch, community policing, and Weed and Seed. Particular types of places, because of their function(s), may be the focus of crime prevention as well. Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) and "hot spot" policing are examples of place-oriented crime prevention programs/strategies.

This program area includes evaluation information on Community-Based Crime Prevention, Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design, and Gang Programs and Strategies.

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