Abstract Research Summary Ron Clarke argued that crime prevention must be tailored to the specific situations in which crime occurs. Central to this principle are the characteristics of places: the access, responsibility, and guardianship features of a place shape who is present, for what purpose, and under whose supervision and, therefore, whether population presence generates crime opportunity or provides guardianship. Drawing on this principle, this study introduces a novel classification of the places where crime occurs using their accessibility and guardianship structures, ranging from fully private to fully public access, and asks whether the population–crime association is conditional on these structures. Two population measures are compared: census population and ambient population measured from geotagged social media. Four crime types (property, violence, drug, and public order) are examined across two time periods, normal conditions and COVID‐19 mobility restrictions. Across places, increased ambient population is positively associated with crime at publicly accessible locations, consistent with an opportunity mechanism, whereas census population shows the opposite pattern, consistent with guardianship. Under mobility restrictions, the ambient association weakened, particularly at commercial premises, whereas the census association at residential places remained unchanged. For violence, the temporal association reversed from positive to negative: under restrictions, violence was lower in busier hours. Policy Implications Place‐based crime prevention should be differentiated by place‐type characteristics because accessibility levels, guardianship features, and the population differ across our place types. Public, semipublic, semiprivate, and private settings all have different pulses in terms of how their characteristics drive population types and fluctuations at different times and thus affect the rhythm of crime within them. Resource allocation based on temporal variation in ambient population, rather than fixed residential patterns alone, should therefore better reflect where crime opportunities concentrate.
Abstract Research Summary Traditionally, the criminal justice system has been responsible for addressing crime, but civil law can also play an important role in reducing crime problems. Drawing on the principles of situational crime prevention, this study examines an innovative approach to tackling drug houses in Dallas, TX. The program supports resident‐led enforcement of nuisance abatement laws to hold property owners accountable for crime occurring at their properties. Between 2021 and 2024, the program successfully resolved 48 nuisance properties, primarily single‐family homes associated with narcotics and violent crime, through remedies consisting of tenant eviction, property rehabilitation, or demolition. Using annual crime incident data from 2017 to 2025, this study evaluates changes in crime at treated nuisance properties ( n = 48) and within a 0.1‐mi radius compared with post hoc comparison properties ( n = 55). A staggered difference‐in‐differences design using the Callaway and Sant'Anna estimator was employed to account for variation in treatment timing across properties. Results indicate that the program produced significant reductions in crime at treated properties and in the surrounding area following intervention, with minimal evidence of differential pre‐intervention trends. Survey data from participating residents further provide insights into perceived improvements in neighborhood safety and community cohesion following program implementation. Policy Implications The program is the first that we know of that equips residents to fight crime on their street using the civil justice system. By using nuisance abatement laws to address narcotics activity at properties that affect public safety and health, the program aims to target the drugs and crime associated with single residences, disrupting crime and modifying the environment of the street, and empowering residents to prevent future crime.
Abstract Research Summary Drawing on the tenets of situational crime prevention, several place‐based interventions are both effective in reducing crime and relatively inexpensive. The installation of large exterior murals also fits within the situational crime prevention framework. In Philadelphia, the staggered implementation of mural arts lends itself to a quasi‐experimental design, using spatial and temporal variation to test how murals affect crime. Employing this method, I find significant crime decreases on street segments after mural painting begins, concentrated in nighttime property crime, which falls by approximately 23% (about 0.06 fewer incidents per street segment per quarter) in a heterogeneity‐robust staggered difference‐in‐differences analysis. This estimate is similar under a traditional two‐way fixed effects approach and when the comparison group is matched to mural streets on prior crime. I also detect suggestive yet sizeable crime displacement to adjoining blocks, along with suggestive variation in significance by mural location. Policy Implications The findings support funding arts programs to address local crime complaints alongside the current goals of public art investment. The concentration of effects in a single crime category and the displacement of crime to adjoining blocks suggest the need for a more wholesale blight remediation strategy that extends beyond the single use of mural arts. Future research should examine which features of larger areas drive crime reduction and displacement, test whether effects vary by artwork characteristics, and use randomized placement to rule out other concurrent neighborhood interventions.
Abstract Research Summary Between 2021 and 2024, the Mecklenburg County (NC) Department of Public Health's Office of Violence Prevention launched two targeted media campaigns in response to high rates of community violence. The first used geofencing: virtual geographic boundaries that deliver targeted advertisements to mobile devices. The second used clean graffiti, in which anti‐violence messages were power‐washed onto sidewalks. This study applies a staggered difference‐in‐differences design to estimate the campaigns’ effect on 311 calls (as a proxy for citizen engagement) and violent crime incidents, conditioned on observed covariates that may introduce confounding effects. Overall campaign exposure was associated with statistically significant increases in overall 311 calls and request‐related 311 calls. Neither campaign, when assessed separately, produced significant effects. No models showed overall impacts on violent crime. Policy Implications Despite their popularity, crime prevention media campaigns have been less frequently evaluated than other situational crime prevention (SCP) techniques. As a result, the knowledge base on the alert conscience technique is much less developed than that on techniques such as target hardening, formal surveillance, natural surveillance, and place management. In the current study, while 311 calls significantly increased, the media campaigns did not reduce violent crime. This suggests that the alert conscience technique of SCP may be less effective for crime reduction than approaches that directly modify the physical environment to limit crime opportunities. Media campaigns may therefore need to be paired with other crime prevention techniques if they are to affect crime as well as community engagement.
Abstract Research Summary This editorial introduction is for the special issue, “Designing Effective Crime Prevention Policies: Recognizing Ronald V. Clarke's Contributions to Criminology and Crime Science.” The guest editors, William D. Moreto and Anthony A. Braga, provide a summary of Ronald Clarke's outstanding career and significant contributions to criminology, crime science, and public policy. The guest editors also deliver individual tributes to Clarke highlighting his impact on their careers and provide an overview of the contributions in the special issue. Policy Implications In this editorial introduction, the guest editors discuss Clarke's enduring impact on crime prevention policy and academic‐practitioner partnerships.
