Course

Community Crime Prevention

Faculty
Humanities & Social Sciences
Department
Criminology
Course code
CRIM 3385
Credits
3.00
Semester length
15
Max class size
25
Typically offered
To be determined

Overview

Course description
This course examines primary, secondary and tertiary approaches to the prevention of crime in order to provide students with a conceptual framework from which they can evaluate and create programs to reduce crime in the community. The conceptual framework will draw from principles of community and developmental psychology, environmental criminology and security administration. The emphasis in the course will be on the “environment,” including social, cultural and physical surroundings and finding ways, using planning, architecture, situational crime prevention, programming, and social justice means to reduce the amount of spatial clustering or “hot spots” of crime and development of crime.
Course content
  1. Introduction to Crime Prevention (CP)
  2. Theoretical and Practical Development of Community-based Crime Prevention
  3. Defining Policy & Identifying Policy Directives, Applications & Implications for Crime Prevention
  4. Displacement, Human Mobility and Journey to Crime
  5. Crime Prevention and CPTED (Crime Prevention through Environmental Design)
  6. Urban Planning for Crime Prevention
  7. Situational Crime Prevention
  8. Developmental Crime Prevention
  9. Media Influence and Impact of Political Agenda Setting on Crime Prevention
  10. Evaluation of “what works” in Crime Prevention
  11. Problem Solving and Crime Analysis
Learning activities

This course will employ a variety of instructional methods to accomplish its objectives, including:

  • lectures
  • audio visual material
  • small group discussions
  • research projects and research papers

Means of assessment

Evaluation will be carried out in accordance with Douglas College policy.  Evaluation will be based on the course objectives, and should include an applied group or individual project as a primary component of this applied course.  The instructor will provide a written course outline with specific evaluation criteria at the beginning of the semester.  An example of a possible evaluation scheme would be:

Midterm Exam  30%
Project Proposal  15%
Prevention Presentation  20%
Prevention Program (write up)  25%
Participation  10%
Total 100%
Learning outcomes

After completion of this course, students will be able to:

  • THEORY
    • Apply the theoretical background of crime prevention
    • Explain how the environment influences behavior, mobility and crime opportunity
    • Utilize and apply the research base on journey to crime and displacement for prevention programs
    • Explain and apply the concept of ‘defensible space’
  • APPLICATION
    • Design and create primary, secondary and tertiary crime prevention programs
    • Design urban planning modifications for crime prevention efforts
    • Explain and apply CPTED techniques in a real environment
    • Explain and apply Situational Crime Prevention techniques in a real environment
    • Design environmental modifications and/or programs for obstructing and reducing the opportunities for the commission of crimes

Textbook materials

Coursepack of relevant selected readings will be available, subject to copyright approval.

Texts will be updated periodically.  A typical example is: 

 

  • Steven P. Lab (9th edition). Crime Prevention: Approaches, Practices & Evaluation. Cincinnati, Ohio: Anderson Publishing

 

Requisites

Prerequisites

15 credits of Criminology courses including CRIM 1150

Corequisites

No corequisite courses.

Equivalencies

No equivalent courses.

Course Guidelines

Course Guidelines for previous years are viewable by selecting the version desired. If you took this course and do not see a listing for the starting semester / year of the course, consider the previous version as the applicable version.

(Current)

Course Transfers

These are for current course guidelines only. For a full list of archived courses please see https://www.bctransferguide.ca

Institution Transfer details for CRIM 3385
Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU) KPU CRIM 4201 (3)
Langara College (LANG) LANG CRIM 2XXX (3)
Simon Fraser University (SFU) SFU CRIM 350 (3)
Thompson Rivers University (TRU) TRU SOCI 2XXX (3)
Trinity Western University (TWU) TWU HUMA 3XX (3)
University of British Columbia - Okanagan (UBCO) UBCO ARTS_O 2nd (3)
University of British Columbia - Vancouver (UBCV) UBCV ARTS_V 2nd (3)
University of Northern BC (UNBC) UNBC HUMN 3XX (3)
University of the Fraser Valley (UFV) UFV CRIM 418 (3)
University of Victoria (UVIC) UVIC SOCI 3XX (1.5)

Course Offerings

Winter 2025