Introduction

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One might assume that the level of interest in this kind of prevention would be proportional to the cost of those crimes to business.  The Dutch paper went on to explore how government could encourage more of this self-serving prevention, for example through increased training opportunities. The Netherlands have in fact made several advances in engaging the private sector. 

One of the early initiatives was to convince insurance companies to recognize efforts made by homeowners to make their homes more secure.  In this case, the insurance company has a clear interest and benefit, but so does the homeowner. Commercial and community interests join. (Of course many business representatives would be quick to explain that decreasing thefts within business also provide indirect benefits to consumers through lower prices).  The work of the Netherlands was aided by an analysis conducted by ICPC in 1998 (Hicks, 1998).

In Norway, a private insurance firm has gone a step further by encouraging community action. The company Vesta sponsors an organization known as Night Ravens, which gathers parents into groups to visit and provide a presence in night zones where young people may typically be socializing in and around bars. These volunteers are trained not to intervene, but only to be present, provide information and communicate with police if there are problems.  In this case, the private enterprise is receiving some good publicity and may benefit indirectly from lower rates of violence,  but the main beneficiary of the activity is the community and youth- both those at risk of victimization, and those at risk of offending.

The private sector role in other countries has evolved in other ways as well. In Canada, the Business Network for Crime Prevention supports a range of community initiatives. In South Africa, Business Against Crime (BAC) supports both situational and social development initiatives in prevention. The NRMA Insurance Company in Australia provides small “CrimeSafe” grants to help community groups who wish to tackle the social factors which underpin the development of criminality

Of course another kind of private sector involvement is the business of prevention - the security industry which provides technology,  products and direct service.  In the USA, private police have outnumbered public police for a decade, and this situation is developing in several other countries as well.   The beneficiaries of private security companies, of sophisticated alarm and monitoring systems, of technological deterrents to theft, tampering, or other crimes, are often the people who can afford their services.  This may have an unintended effect of skewing the distribution of criminality, perhaps concentrating it in poorer and more vulnerable communities. 

Then there are the instances of global companies in the information technology industry, who try to keep the internet or other electronic messaging systems from becoming an insecure exchange, or a criminalized market. Here, private and public interests converge, as the world’s business, education, entertainment and social relations become more and more dependent on electronic communication media.

The questions regarding the public and private roles in crime prevention, how they are elaborated, how they intersect, and what might be done to enhance cooperation, are important to the future of crime prevention. 

I would like to invite IO readers who have an interest in this area to be in touch with us, at: lcapo at crime-prevention-intl.org, and to help us frame and define the issues for next year’s Colloquium.  

Terrance Hunsley, Director General, ICPC