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CRIME AND THE URBAN ENVIRONMENT

NCJ Number
147415
Editor(s)
H Jones
Date Published
1993
Length
163 pages
Annotation
Based on papers presented at a symposium on Crime and the Scottish Environment organized by the editor in September 1992, this book considers a wide range of environmental influences on crime in modern Scotland.
Abstract
Throughout the book, environmental influences on crime are viewed from the perspectives of sociology and human geography, the disciplines represented by most of the contributors. The editor advises, "the roots of crime are environmental, ranging from key structural influences like poverty and class, through the roles in the community of agencies like the police and housing authorities, to the narrower design influences of the built environment." Included papers consider a wide range of such environmental influences on crime in Scotland. An introductory chapter discusses current developments internationally in environmental criminology. Subsequent papers focus on the Scottish experience, since Scotland has a distinctive criminological pattern based on significant cultural, institutional, and urban morphological differences from the rest of Great Britain. This is the theme of the keynote paper. Other papers examine environmental influences that range from the sociopolitical context of Scottish policing to a case study of the impact of enhanced street lighting. The effect of the environment on the fear of crime, notably women's fear of sexual violence, is also examined. Chapter tables and a 280-item bibliography