ENVIRON

MENTAL
CRIMINO
LOGY
Presenter: Roderick S. Palad
INTRODUCTION:
In 1971, C Ray Jeffrey ,who coined the term “environmental criminology” published a book
entitled “Crime Prevention Through Environmental Doing” in w/c he explained that immediate
environment plays a role in crime and suggested strategies for reducing crimes by modifying
immediate environment.
An environmental criminology approach was developed in the 1980’s by Paul and Patricia
Branting ham, putting focus of criminological study on environment and the environmental factors
that can influence criminality. These include space (Geography), time, law offender and target or
victim. These components must be present in a sufficient opportunity, for in the absence of one
factor crime cannot be committed even if the other four components present.
BODY OF THE REPORT
Environmental criminology is the study of crime, criminality, and victimization as they relate
first , to a particular place or geographic location and secondly to the way that individual and
groups shape their activities spatially and in so doing are in turn influenced by place - based ,
spatial factors or geographical crime patterns.
It also focuses on criminal pattern within particular built environments and analize the
impacts of these external variables on people’s cognitive behaviour . It suggest too that crime is
the effect if not affected by a person’s territorial environment.
Environmental criminologists find for crimes trends and investigate them to explain the role
of environment in influencing a person who engage in crimes. After an investigation of the
inlfluences made by the environment they come up with rules and strategies from their
predictions to address the crime problems in a particular locality.
The environmental criminology has a unique perpespective. It explains that a crime is an
object of interest. The offender is just an element of crime and how the offender is involve. Unlike
the traditional criminological approaches like explaining how biological factors, developmental
experiences and social forces influence criminality. In this branch of criminology it focus on
historical perspective as causes of crime. The focus of environmetal criminilogy perspective on the
other hand is on current dynamics of crime because of impermanency of situations such as the
place, the time,the offender, the manner and reason of committing it and the nature of violations.
Crime prevention is the goal of environmental perspective rather than cure.
LEARNED INSIGHTS
The physical conditions of environment can influence the occurrence of crime. They affect
the would be violators perception and for execution of environmental place- based crime as they
evaluate the circumstances surrounding a potential crime site.
PROBLEMS/ENCOUNTERED
-Lack of knowledge and awareness of laws.
-Lack and limited use of legislations
-Lack of institutional will and governance and interest of authorities
-Lack of capacity and capability of law enforcement agencies
-Lack of information sharing cooperation among authorities
-Lack of engagement with private and local communities
-Lack of people empowerment against crime
 
CONCLUSION
In a territory where there is a high level of crime commission or crime hot shots, may
have a situational factors that can possibly explain the reasons where in particular location is a
contributory factor or cause of crime and existence. It could be, because it is being abandoned
already by peace authority or poorly supervised and manage by local government officials. It
includes too the physical condition of the environment like poor lighting or the absence of security
barriers which can attract potential criminals to consummate and offense .
RECCOMENDATIONS
Aside from identifying the location of persons, it is important to understand the spatial patterns of
potential offenders because every crime there is an offender. There must be a model which will explain
where people might potentially be a criminal at any given time I recommend that the use of environment
itself can reduced criminality by adapting other countries strategies or tools to fight a place- based crime or
crime base on geography which are‘ crime mapping and the broken windows theory’.
Crime mapping means putting things on a map to denote incidents of crime. This gives a visual of
the frequency of crime committed in a particular area and the type of crime which is usually committed. In
this manner, the authorities can devise a strategy in order to address the problem in a particular area.
The idea of broken window theory is that and un-fixed broken windows can attract more broken
windows. It can represent also a picture of disorder in a certain area, and show decreased of social
responsibility and control. And as the area becomes more populous, crimes will possibly and progressively
become more serious.