Community policing and target hardening techniques : an assessment of household burglary in Santa Venera

Abstract

Rational Choice Theory (Comish and Clarke, 1986) and Routine Activities (Clarke and Felson,1979) suggested that crime and household burglary in particular do not rely solely on the "psycho-biological" nature of criminals, or on their social and economic factors, although these should not be completely ignored. One has to deeply concentrate also on situational factors which widely attract or push motivated offenders to commit a particular criminal act in a certain place and time and on a specific target when in the absence of capable guardians. Hypothetically it is believed that when community policing and target hardening techniques are introduced in crime prone areas, the likelihood is that crime and the fear of crime are eliminated or at least reduced. The reasons behind this study were to evaluate whether these programmes reached the intended aims in the town of Santa Venera. The method of the study consisted of analyses of police official statistical data and a household survey carried out with a neighbourhood watch scheme sample and a control group. Perceptions of a senior police official and a local council representative were evaluated through unstructured interviews. In the final analyses, official statistics revealed a constant reduction in household burglary. However, the survey disclosed that fear of crime was neither eliminated nor reduced. Despite the notion that police officers on the street were the key element to the successful community policing programmes, it transpired that many of the directives of community policing were far beyond officers' current capacities and roles as they were only trained to execute only basic law enforcement activities. Nonetheless, with suitable training, sustenance from high-level police management, a consideration that the passage to community policing takes substantial time and effort and an eagerness to work closely with citizens, police officers can fortuitously adapt to the community policing model.