Inadequate prevention of crime

Inefficient system of crime detection
Decline in crime detection rate

Nature

The long term reduction and control of crime depends upon an appropriate strategy being devised and adopted, not only by each country to deal with its own problems in its own way, but also by the international community, which is already suffering from the neglect of crime prevention in the past. Much of present crime could have been avoided by intelligent foresight which made crime prevention a part of past policy developments.

Police detection of crime depends in most cases upon a report by the victim, the public, or even the criminal himself. The crime may not be reported and thus go undetected because: the victim is vulnerable to prosecution (for example, for carrying a weapon or for suspicion of some other crime); the victim may accept such victimization as one of the risks of life; the victim or witnesses may not recognize an act as a crime (a brawl or a traffic violation, for example), or they may not correctly evaluate the gravity of the crime; a witness may not wish to "get involved" and thus will not place a report.

Incidence

In the UK in 1994 a survey indicated that the clear-up rate for crime in England and Wales had declined from 40% in 1980 to less than 25% in 1993, with the Scottish rate remaining stable at 32%.

Counter-claim

Some countries have experimented with broad approaches to the kind of general social improvement which they hoped would reduce crime. The developing countries have tried to plan their national growth, sometimes expecting problems like crime to disappear along the way. Many industrialized countries, less committed to national planning, have nevertheless devoted funds to selected programmes of social development intended to reduce crime by dealing with the conditions thought to produce it.