Many governments specifically apply it to their efforts to reduce crime, enforce the law, maintain criminal justice and uphold overall stability.
The European Forum for Urban Safety and the United States Conference of Mayors have stressed that municipalities must target the programs to meet the needs of youth at risk and women who are vulnerable to violence.
Programs such as general social services, educational institutions and the police are focused on youth who are at risk and have been shown to significantly reduce crime.
By gaining an understanding of these circumstances, mechanisms are then introduced to change the relevant environments with the aim of reducing the opportunities for particular crimes.
[5] SCP focuses on opportunity-reducing processes that: The theory behind SCP concentrates on the creation of safety mechanisms that assist in protecting people by making criminals feel they may be unable to commit crimes or would be in a situation where they may be caught or detected, which will result in them being unwilling to commit crimes where such mechanisms are in place.
The logic behind this is based on the concept of rational choice - that every criminal will assess the situation of a potential crime, weigh up how much they may gain, balance it against how much they may lose and the probability of failing and then act accordingly.
Situational Crime prevention can be applied using twenty-five opportunity reducing techniques: One example of SCP in practice is automated traffic enforcement.
In a Philadelphia study, some of the city's most dangerous intersections had a reduction of 96% in red light violations after the installation and advertisement of an ATES system.
Understanding these circumstances leads to the introduction of measures that alter the environmental factors with the aim of reducing opportunities for criminal behavior.
For example, drivers approaching a traffic junction where there are speed cameras slow down if there is a nearly 100% chance of being caught trying to run a red light.
It has been suggested that cybercriminals be assessed in terms of their criminal attributes, which include skills, knowledge, resources, access and motives (SKRAM).
Clarke proposed a table of twenty-five techniques of situational crime prevention but the five general headings are: These techniques can be specifically adapted to cybercrime as follows: Increasing the effort Reinforcing targets and restricting access- the use of firewalls, encryption, card/password access to ID databases and banning hacker websites and magazines.
Reducing the rewards Removing targets and disrupting cyberplaces with methods such as monitoring Internet sites and incoming spam, harsh penalties for hacking, rapid notification of stolen or lost credit bankcards, avoiding ID numbers on all official documents.
Reducing provocation and excuses Avoiding disputes and temptations helps with maintaining positive employee-management relations and increasing awareness of responsible use policy.
[13] After viruses, illicit access to and theft of information form the highest percentage of all financial losses associated with computer crime and security incidents.
[17] In the case of computer crime, even cautious companies or businesses that aim to create effective and comprehensive security measures may unintentionally produce an environment which helps provide opportunities because they are using inappropriate controls.
Credit card fraud has been one of the most complex crimes worldwide in recent times and despite numerous prevention initiatives, it is clear that more needs to be done if the problem is to be solved.
The broken windows theory, though widely disputed, posits that visible signs of disorder in neighborhoods may encourage criminal activity due to perceived weak social control.
These changes include reducing the density of high-rise public housing, implementing zoning reforms, limiting the number of liquor licenses in a given area, and maintaining and securing vacant lots and buildings.