Page 4025 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 24 October 1990
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to have the opportunity to very clearly establish this sort of crime prevention technique. It is an area, of course, where those basic building blocks of neighbourhoods - which include primary schools - come into focus.
The punitive prevention is the one that we most normally jump to, and that is increasing fines and gaol sentences, and so forth, in order to increase the deterrent effect in terms of crime. There is now growing evidence that the deterrent effect is having less and less effect; that there are rational decisions about how people make crimes. Nevertheless, we know it has some effect, but it must be considered in perspective.
The mechanical prevention is another one. A good example of mechanical prevention is the glass shields at banks that prevent people from being able to walk into a bank and commit an armed robbery. Another example of mechanical prevention is the electronic door locks on motor cars which prevent people from breaking into motor cars, as well as window designs where you cannot just slip a piece of wire down the outside of the glass, and twist and open. I have certainly watched somebody I know very well legally open a car by this method, as fast as I can do it with a key. When somebody knows how to do that, it is a very effective way of opening cars, and it makes those sorts of preventions important, as well as steering locks and that sort of thing.
Environmental prevention, of course, is another factor which must be considered. Environmental prevention is the design relationship between buildings and their environment to help prevent other sorts of crimes. The notion of crime prevention has to be rather specific. The whole notion is that you are aware of a specific style of crime, and you take action to prevent that style of crime. There are those that argue that the crime will, therefore, go elsewhere. I think that that argument may well be true in many of the cases. If only half of them do not go elsewhere, then what you have is a very effective and good dollar value method of crime prevention.
Crime prevention can go into three levels: individual level, community level, and environmental design. Community level is the first important level, I think, because it is something that has been done very effectively by the Australian Federal Police in Canberra, and that is through the Neighbourhood Watch system. No doubt, there is still more room for improvement at community level. We are very fortunate that our Australian Federal Police have taken very seriously the notion of crime prevention and their role in community policing. I would not like anybody to interpret this committee in any way as being an attempt to undermine what the police have done, and I have made that comment on a number of occasions.
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