Preventing Crime at Places: The Importance of Recognizing That Places Exist Within a Broader Social Context

Reducing crime opportunities at places is a successful strategy to reduce actual crime. This conceptual article examines how reducing crime at places is also an opportunity to have greater social impact and improve social justice, particularly when crime displacement may occur, through the recognition that no place exists in a vacuum. We discuss opportunity reduction in its traditional form, but also in a broader context that considers a fuller extent of crime prevention that more closely resembles its original formulation in the field of environmental criminology. We interrogate our traditional opportunity-reduction theories, identifying some of their limitations and noting that theoretical integration is not only conceptually possible, but empirically shown to matter. This is followed by a discussion of theoretical integration and its importance for crime prevention. We close our discussion outlining a crime prevention model, SafeGrowth, that considers both place-based strategies and community approaches.