Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- List of contributors
- Preface
- 1 The terrorism–torture link: when evil begets evil
- 2 Torture, terrorism, and the moral prohibition on killing non-combatants
- 3 The equivalent logic of torture and terrorism: the legal regulation of moral monstrosity
- 4 War versus criminal justice in response to terrorism: the losing logic of torture
- 5 Reducing the opportunities for terrorism: applying the principles of situational crime prevention
- 6 From the terrorists' point of view: toward a better understanding of the staircase to terrorism
- 7 If they're not crazy, then what? The implications of social psychological approaches to terrorism for conflict management
- 8 The cycle of righteous destruction: a Terror Management Theory perspective on terrorist and counter-terrorist violence
- 9 Misinformation and the “War on Terror”: when memory turns fiction into fact
- 10 Icons of fear: terrorism, torture, and the media
- 11 What explains torture coverage during war-time? A search for realistic answers
- 12 Reversed negatives: how the news media respond to “our” atrocities
- 13 Terrorism and TV news coverage of the 2001 Australian election
- 14 Terrorism, anxiety, and war
- 15 I'm right, you're dead: speculations about the roots of fanaticism
- 16 Reducing terrorist risk: integrating jurisdictional and opportunity approaches
- Index
- References
5 - Reducing the opportunities for terrorism: applying the principles of situational crime prevention
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 September 2009
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- List of contributors
- Preface
- 1 The terrorism–torture link: when evil begets evil
- 2 Torture, terrorism, and the moral prohibition on killing non-combatants
- 3 The equivalent logic of torture and terrorism: the legal regulation of moral monstrosity
- 4 War versus criminal justice in response to terrorism: the losing logic of torture
- 5 Reducing the opportunities for terrorism: applying the principles of situational crime prevention
- 6 From the terrorists' point of view: toward a better understanding of the staircase to terrorism
- 7 If they're not crazy, then what? The implications of social psychological approaches to terrorism for conflict management
- 8 The cycle of righteous destruction: a Terror Management Theory perspective on terrorist and counter-terrorist violence
- 9 Misinformation and the “War on Terror”: when memory turns fiction into fact
- 10 Icons of fear: terrorism, torture, and the media
- 11 What explains torture coverage during war-time? A search for realistic answers
- 12 Reversed negatives: how the news media respond to “our” atrocities
- 13 Terrorism and TV news coverage of the 2001 Australian election
- 14 Terrorism, anxiety, and war
- 15 I'm right, you're dead: speculations about the roots of fanaticism
- 16 Reducing terrorist risk: integrating jurisdictional and opportunity approaches
- Index
- References
Summary
Societies threatened by terrorism pursue many different strategies to protect themselves from attack. These include: “taking out” terrorists, sometimes through conventional warfare; strengthening laws and legal action to bring terrorists to justice; winning the “hearts and minds” of foreign and local communities that might otherwise support terrorism; persuading certain regimes to abandon their support for terrorists; and strengthening the confidence of home populations, including detailed plans for minimizing harm when attacks are made.
These strategies have been widely discussed in the academic literature, but in this chapter we discuss an approach that has received less attention – that of reducing the opportunities for terrorism. By this we mean protecting the most vulnerable targets from attack, controlling the tools and weapons used by terrorists, and altering specific aspects of other social and physical systems – what we call facilitating conditions – to make it harder for terrorists to operate. This approach is an application of situational crime prevention, the science of reducing opportunities for crime (Clarke, 1980). This means that we treat terrorism as simply another form of crime – crime with a political motive (Clarke and Newman, 2006). Situational prevention has no difficulty handling the many different motives that drive crime. For example, sexual abuse is a very differently motivated offense from, say, homicide or burglary or robbery, but examples of the successful application of situational prevention exist for all these and many other crimes (e.g., see Clarke, 2005).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Terrorism and TortureAn Interdisciplinary Perspective, pp. 86 - 105Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009
References
, and (1993). Environment, routine and situation: toward a pattern theory of crime. In and (eds.), Routine Activity and Rational Choice (pp. 259–294). New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Press.Google Scholar
, and (1988). Intervention policy analysis of skyjackings and other terrorist incidents. American Economic Review, 78, 27–31.Google Scholar
(1975). Deterrence: certainty, severity, and skyjacking. Criminology, 12, 447–473.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1980). Situational crime prevention: theory and practice. British Journal of Criminology, 20, 136–147.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1999). Hot Products: Understanding, Anticipating and Reducing the Demand for Stolen Goods. Police Research Series, 112. London: Home Office.Google Scholar
(2005). Seven misconceptions of situational crime prevention. In (ed.), Handbook of Crime Prevention and Community Safety (pp. 39–70). Cullompton: Willan Publishing.Google Scholar
, and (2005). Crime Analysis for Problem Solvers: In 60 Small Steps. Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. Washington, DC: US Department of Justice.Google Scholar
, , and (2001). Controlling cell phone fraud in the US. Security Journal, 14, 7–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, and (1988). The British Gas suicide story and its criminological implications. In and (eds.), Crime and Justice, Volume 10: An Annual Review of Research, Crime and Justice, 10 (pp. 79–116). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
, and (eds.) (2005). Designing Out Crime from Products and Systems. Crime Prevention Studies, 18. Monsey, NY: Criminal Justice Press.
, and (2006). Outsmarting the Terrorists. Westport, CT: Praeger Security International.Google Scholar
, and (1979). Social change and crime rate trends: a routine activity approach. American Sociological Review, 44, 588–608.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, and (eds.) (1986). The Reasoning Criminal: Rational Choice Perspectives on Offending. New York: Springer-Verlag.CrossRef
, and (2003). Opportunities, precipitators and criminal decisions: a reply to Wortley's critique of situational crime prevention. In and (eds.), Theory for Practice in Situational Crime Prevention. Crime Prevention Studies, 16 (pp. 151–196). Monsey, NY: Criminal Justice Press.Google Scholar
, , and (2005). Testing a rational choice model of airline hijackings. Criminology, 43, 1031–1066.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1995). Less crime, by design. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 539, 114–129.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, and (1993). The effectiveness of antiterrorism policies: a vector-autoregression-intervention analysis. American Political Science Review, 87, 829–844.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, and (2000). Is transnational terrorism becoming more threatening?Journal of Conflict Resolution, 44, 307–332.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, and (2006). The Political Economy of Terrorism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
, , and (1990). UN conventions, technology and retaliation in the fight against terrorism: an econometric evaluation. Terrorism and Political Violence, 2, 83–105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, and (2005). Partners against crime: the role of the corporate sector in tackling crime. In and (eds.), Designing Out Crime from Products and Systems. Crime Prevention Studies, 18 (pp. 85–140). Monsey, NY: Criminal Justice Press.Google Scholar
(1994). Displacement: a review of the empirical literature. In (ed.), Crime Prevention Studies, 3 (pp. 197–230). Monsey, NY: Criminal Justice Press.Google Scholar
(2006). Q&A: the UAE purchase of American port facilities. February 23. New York Times. Retrieved February 7, 2007, from www.nytimes.com/cfr/international/slot1_022306.html.
, and (1998). Crime and Justice in the United States and in England and Wales, 1981–96. Washington, DC: US Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics.Google Scholar
(2008). Combating identity and other forms of payment fraud in the UK: an analytical history. In and (eds.), Identity Theft and Opportunity (pp. 111–132). Crime Prevention Studies, 23. Monsey, NY: Criminal Justice Press.Google Scholar
- 4
- Cited by