Local Crime prevention and its National Support: Organisation and Direction

This article is a short summary of some of the key elements in a 1996 report to the Swedish Ministry of Justice. The study was commissioned to the authors as a part of the Government's work of creating a National Crime Prevention Programme for Sweden. The analysis underlined the importance of co-ordinating the crime-prevention efforts of the legal system and other actors. The level and structure of criminality is subject to considerable local variations. What is, and what is perceived as, problematical behaviour differs considerably from region to region, city to city, and areas within a city. It is thus important that crime-prevention work be based on a description of the problem profile prevailing locally. The complex of problems faced in big cities, for example, is very different from the complex of problems existing in a small provincial town, and the strategies guiding the adoption of appropriate measures in these two places will therefore also be different. Similarly, the difficulties encountered when implementing measures will also differ from place to place. The final aim of a national crime prevention programme is that there should be locally developed crime-prevention programmes (with a national support structure) encompassing: early social prevention, later-stage social prevention, early situational prevention, general situational prevention, and programmes for chronic criminals.