Whom do we blame for causing crime? Increasingly, Americans blame the management of shopping malls, restaurants, parking facilities, and other quasi-public spaces on private property where many predatory crimes occur. This trend has fed both litigation and legislation regulating private security measures in those locations. The two main trends require the disclosure of information on prior crimes and the provision of specific crime prevention strategies. Despite the measurement problems in reporting place-specific crime rates, this practice seems likely to grow. So do the legal restrictions on the physical design of automatic teller machines, the number of clerks on duty in stores, and the number of security guards on duty. Whether these requirements will actually reduce, or even increase, crime remains to be seen. An agency like the Food and Drug Administration is needed to supervise the testing of crime prevention measures to ensure that they are safe and effective.
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References
1.
1. Indianapolis Star, 29 Oct. 1994.
2.
2. Albert J. Reiss, Jr., “The Legitimacy of Intrusions to Private Space,” in Private Policing, ed. Clifford D. Shearing and Phillip C. Stenning (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1987).
3.
3. Clifford Shearing, “The Relation between Public and Private Policing,” in Modern Policing, Crime and Justice: A Review of Research, ed. Michael Tonry and Norval Morris (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 15:399-434.
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4. Paul J. Brantingham and Patricia L. Brantingham, eds., Environmental Criminol-
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5. Philip Cook, “The Demand and Supply of Criminal Opportunities,” in Crime and Justice: A Review of Research, vol. 7, ed. Michael Tonry and Norval Morris (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986).
6.
6. A recent National Academy of Sciences panel on violent crime, for example, called the approach “promising” but concluded that results to date show “inconsistent and temporary effects.”Albert J. Reiss, Jr. and Jeffrey Roth, Understanding and Preventing Violence (Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences, 1993), pp. 145, 148.
7.
7. The testimony was part of a case that was settled and sealed.
8.
8. Bonnie S. Fisher, “Crime and Fear on Campus,” this issue of The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.
9.
9. See, for example, a recent attack on the fast-food industry for refusing to produce crime statistics. Laurie Grossman, “Easy Marks: Fast Food Industry Is Slow to Take Action against Growing Crime,”Wall Street Journal, 22 Sept. 1994.
10.
10. The author was a paid expert witness for the defense in this case and has been paid to discuss the case on national television. He has also been a paid expert for plaintiffs in negligent security litigation.
11.
11. These quarterly reports are prepared under the author's direction by the staff of the Crime Control Research Corporation, Washington, DC.
12.
12. For example, 221 Washington Boulevard South can be entered into a police computer as “221 Wash. Blvd.,”“221 S. Wash Boul.,”“221 S. Washington Blvd.,” and so forth. Only more recent police computer programs can accurately detect and retrieve every variant of an address.
13.
13. The National Academy of Sciences report distinguishes aggregate and individual risk, defining the former as the total number of crimes and the latter as crimes per person-hour at risk. Reiss and Roth, Understanding and Preventing Violence, p. 146.
14.
14. New York Times, 21 July 1992.
15.
15. Richard Perez-Pena, “Bystanders Join to Trap Robber at a Cash Machine in New York,”New York Times, 19 Oct. 1994.
16.
Adam Bryant, “Making the Cash Machine a Safer Place to Bank,” ibid., 27 July 1992; James C. McKinley, Jr., “Tough New York Cash-Machine Bill Is Passed,” ibid., 30 July 1992.
17.
17. Herman Goldstein, Problem-Oriented Policing (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1990), p. 80.
18.
Peter Kilborn, “Rethinking Safety in a Workplace That Lures Crime,” ibid., 7 Apr. 1991.
19.
19. Jerry V. Wilson, Gainesville Convenience Store Ordinance (Washington, DC: Crime Control Research Corporation, 1990). The contract for this report financially benefited the author of the present article.
20.
20. Reiss and Roth, Understanding and Preventing Violence, p. 317.
21.
21. Ibid.
22.
22. Brooke A. Masters, “Close Early to Cut Crime, D.C. Chief Tells Retailers,”Washington Post, 19 Nov. 1993.
23.
23. For example, Jim Dwyer, Subway Lives: 24 Hours in the Life of the New York Subway (New York: Crown, 1991).
24.
24. American Journal of Public Health, 77(10) (Oct. 1987).
25.
25. Lawrence W. Sherman, “Dirty Hands and Social Science,”Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 30(3):362-364 (1993).
26.
26. Catherine E. Bell and E. Lynn Jenkins, Homicide in U.S. Workplaces: A Strategy for Prevention and Research (Morgantown, WV: National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Division of Safety Research, 1992).
27.
27. National Association of Convenience Stores, Store Safety Kit (Alexandria, VA:National Association of Convenience Stores, 1990).
28.
28. Grossman, “Easy Marks.”
29.
29. Robert Pear, “Debate Grows on Safety at White House,”New York Times, 31 Oct. 1994, national ed., p. A9.
