HANDBOOK ON CRIME PREvENTION GUIDELINES: MAKING THEM wORK
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CHAPTER I
sharply since 2000. El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua and small Caribbean
statessuchasSaintLuciahavebeensimilarlyaffectedbyeventsoutsidetheirborders
in addition to internal events. In such cases coordinated regional crime prevention
strategies are an important complement to national crime prevention strategies.
Theseproblemsarenotlimitedtomiddle-orlow-incomecountries.Inhigh-income
countries, progress in crime prevention over the past 20 years has been patchy and
sometimes circular. Sometimes expectations that crime prevention will bring swift
results are set too high.There can be strong resistance to change among the police
and criminal justice sectors, and a lack of capacity to work in partnerships at local
levels,whilepublicdemandstoincreasereactiveresponsestoviolenteventscanput
heavy pressure on Governments to shift their focus away from prevention.
EnglandandWales,forexample,establishedstrongnationalpoliciesoncrimereduc-
tionfrom1997,withmandatoryrequirementsforlocalauthoritiestodevelopCrime
Reduction Partnerships with local police and other sectors on a regular basis.They
also instituted a national, evaluated funding programme targeting specific types of
crime problems such as residential burglary, street crime and school violence.Their
successhasbeenhamperedbyanumberoffactors,includingalackoflocalcapacity
andtheimpositionofnationaltargetsetting.Targetsettingrequiredlocalauthorities
to reduce particular types of crime by specific amounts, and militated against local
community concerns and responses to the local crime patterns identified.
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Since
2007, the requirements for local authorities and the police to meet national targets
have been dropped to enable them to focus on the most important local
problems.
D . International support for the guidelines on
crime prevention adopted by the United Nations
Theguidelinesoncrimepreventionaresupportedbyandgroundedinanumber
ofotherinternationalstandardsandnormsadoptedbytheUnitedNations.These
include resolutions relating to children's rights, women's rights and the rights of
victims. For example:
" The Convention on the Rights of the Child
25
" The United Nations Guidelines for the Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency
(the Riyadh Guidelines)
26
" The Declaration on the Elimination ofViolence againstWomen
27
24
Mike Maguire, "The crime reduction programme in England andWales: reflections on the vision and the
reality",
Criminology and Criminal Justice, vol. 4, No. 3 (2004), pp. 213-237; Peter Homel and others, Investing to
Deliver: Reviewing the Implementation of the UK Crime Reduction Programme,ResearchStudyNo.281(London,Home
Office,2004);A.MorganandP.Homel,
Assessing the Impact of Community Safety and Crime Prevention Plans(Can-
berra,Australian Institute of Criminology, 2009); Enver Solomon,"New Labour and crime prevention in England
&Wales: what worked?",
IPC Review, vol. 3, 2009, pp. 41-67; Adam Crawford, ed., Crime Prevention Policies in
Comparative Perspective (Cullompton, Devon,Willan Publishing, 2009).
25
United Nations,
Treaty Series, vol. 1577, No. 27531.
26
GeneralAssembly resolution 45/112, annex.
27
GeneralAssembly resolution 48/104.