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Social Science Criminology

Refocusing Crime Prevention

Collective Action and the Quest for Community

by (author) Stephen Schneider

Publisher
University of Toronto Press
Initial publish date
Feb 2007
Category
Criminology
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780802084200
    Publish Date
    Feb 2007
    List Price
    $59.00
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780802035509
    Publish Date
    Feb 2007
    List Price
    $120.00
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781442684768
    Publish Date
    Dec 2007
    List Price
    $119.00

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Description

Despite widespread concern over crime, public participation in local crime prevention programs is generally low and limited to a small, homogeneous group of middle-class home-owing residents. Conspicuously absent from these programs are the very people who are the most vulnerable to crime: the poor, immigrants, and visible minorities.

Refocusing Crime Prevention explores the capacity of disadvantaged neighbourhoods to organize around local crime and disorder problems. Obstacles to the mobilization of communities around crime are strongly related to demographic and socio-psychological characteristics of residents, including low socioeconomic status and a lack of local social integration. Other obstacles stem from weaknesses in program implementation, such as inappropriate or ineffectual community outreach and communications, a lack of resources, and leadership voids. Many of these afore-mentioned barriers flow from broader structural factors, including politico-economic forces that spatially concentrate poverty, crime, and apathy; a culture of pervasive individualism, and a reliance on the welfare state for local problem solving.

Using thorough ethnographic research, Stephen Schneider identifies, comprehensively details, and critically examines the many factors that obstruct public participation in community crime prevention programs, while formulating strategies and theories that attempt to empower disadvantaged and marginalized communities. Refocusing Crime Prevention will aid immensely in the struggle for crime reduction and safer neighbourhoods.

About the author

Stephen Schneider is an Associate Professor and Coordinator of the Criminology Graduate Program at St. Mary’s University.

Stephen Schneider's profile page