NCJ Number
88501
Journal
Kriminologisches Journal Volume: 14 Issue: 3 Dated: (1982) Pages: 167-176
Date Published
1982
Length
10 pages
Annotation
Social disintegration from the loss of traditional values and the family structure makes crime preventive policies necessary, but implementation of prevention efforts is likely to result in an undesirable expansion of social control mechanisms.
Abstract
The idea of proactive official interventions for purposes of primary crime prevention impinges upon citizens' private spheres of activity and places public security as a priority above individual rights. It implies a diversified and expanded social service-law enforcement network whose power would extend to the regulation of daily activities in families, schools, and numerous other aspects of social life. Under a constitutional rule of law, criminal justice intervention is permitted only following the commission of a criminal act, i.e., an individual's illegal actions cause him to become the object of police attention. If preventive strategies are to be widely implemented, they will allow authorities to intervene before the law has been broken, i.e., individuals will come under the scrutiny of the authorities not by virtue of their misdeeds but by the policies prescribing law enforcement goals and activities. Although well-intentioned, as an effort to eliminate criminality and to fill the void which dissolving informal controls have left, proactive crime prevention contradicts individuals' civil rights and overemphasizes the need for enforced social order as a guarantee of public security.