Community approaches to Preventing crime and violence: The challenge of Building prevention capacity

Abstract

This chapter pays tribute to Professor Farrington’s indefatigable efforts to put crime prevention onto a scientific foundation by offering some reflections on the emerging shape of community approaches to the prevention of crime, aggressive behavior, and violence. The larger goal is to support, but also to critique and expand, the agenda for a comprehensive national prevention strategy put forward by Professors Farrington and Welsh most recently in their book Saving Children from a Life of Crime (2007). The chapter proposes the use by prevention-oriented criminologists of developmental systems theory for its emphasis on relations or connections among individuals, organizations, and settings within human ecology, and the need therefore to make these the focus of preventive efforts; community-centered models for insights into issues such as community engagement and strengthening community capacity; and the implementation of science as a way of strengthening organizational capacity and governance arrangements for prevention.