Some findings from an Australian local crime prevention case study

Fieldwork in a postcode area of inner-Sydney (New South Wales, Australia) over an 18-month period (mid-2012-December 2013) revealed a number of key findings relevant to crime prevention policies and practices. First, a welter of crime prevention programmes and security-related technologies were observed. Many of these diverse programmes are delivered by various organisations, reflect different methods of prevention, and combine to form a preventative 'quilt', which has built up over time. Second, few of these specific initiatives have been thoroughly evaluated, raising questions about the efficacy of the existing evidence-base. Third, despite the seemingly disparate nature of some of these initiatives, there is considerable potential for collective impact from these diverse forms of security and crime prevention. Measuring the potential additive benefits of these programmes, technologies and interventions in combination requires more than just evaluating individual programmes. Together, these findings have implications for approaches to evaluation, for efforts to build an evidence-base and for the development of crime prevention policy.