Violence Prevention and Control Through Environmental Modifications

Abstract

▪ Abstract Violence traditionally had been considered a problem exclusively within the criminal justice domain, although it is now widely viewed as a public health issue as well. Public health has brought new and complementary tools for understanding and preventing violence. Whereas public health has long recognized the environment as a determinant of disease and injury, it has paid less attention to the environment when considering violence prevention strategies. For several decades though, some criminologists and others have been researching environmental factors in crime prevention. This article aims to discuss the main environmental crime-prevention strategies, provide examples of promising interventions, review public health literature that uses these strategies, discuss what public health can contribute, and suggest public health research to test the hypothesis that violence can be prevented and controlled through environmental modifications.

The Growth of Neighborhood Disorder and Marijuana Use Among Urban Adolescents: A Case for Policy and Environmental Interventions

“…The current research provides an objective and contextual analysis that the presence of abandoned buildings is related to the use of marijuana among adolescents as they age into young adulthood. The research also increases our understanding of how the urban neighborhood context infl uences marijuana use over time and lays a foundation for future investigations to test the hypothesis that the development of marijuana use is infl uenced by environmental factors (Mair and Mair, 2003).…”

“…The fi rst includes the family of incivilities theses or disorder theories. When applied to urban settings, these hypotheses purport that physical disorder in urban neighborhoods can lead to serious crime and further disorder (Mair and Mair, 2003;Taylor, 1999). A specifi c example of a disorder theory includes the Wilson and Kelling's Broken Windows theory (Cohen et al, 2000;Kelling and Coles, 1996;Wilson and Kelling, 1982), which suggests that broken windows left unattended signal disregard for the neighborhood environment and promote further damage, more severe crime, and heightened fear of crime among community residents.…”

Neighborhood Interventions to Reduce Violence

“…A review conducted 15 years ago provided a general overview of ways in which the built environment was associated with crime and violence prevention (63). However, given that the body of science at the time relied heavily on cross-sectional research, questions remained about the actual impact of interventions to the built environment on reducing violence.…”

“…Altering high-risk environments, the neighborhoods and places that perpetually surround victims of violence, presents an opportunity for creating practical, sustainable, and high-impact ways to reduce violence (13). Given that violence is highly concentrated in places (63,85), it is important to find effective place-based solutions. Violence prevention efforts have traditionally targeted individuals; although these approaches are important for curbing individual violence rates, they require significant individual effort in order to be effective and may have a limited population impact (37).…”

Neighborhood environment and marijuana use in urban young adults

“…community signs) and maintenance (maintaining aesthetics of neighborhood, e.g. removing graffiti) to neighborhood crime and incivility (Jeffery, 1971;Mair and Mair, 2003). Jeffery (1971) argues that the design of the built physical environment influences crime and quality of life.…”