Self-limiting Crime in Europe

Self-limiting Crime Waves: the Impact of Responsive Securitization on Trends in Volume Crime

JAN VAN DIJK, from the UNIVERSITY OF TILBURG, made a contribution to the 2012 Annual Conference of the European Society of Criminology, in the category “Crime Prevention,” under the title “Self-limiting Crime Waves: the Impact of Responsive Securitization on Trends in Volume Crime”. Here is the abstract: According to both survey research and police records , volume crime has dropped across the Western world since the mid 1990s. This drop seems largely unrelated to the business cycle. Against expectation crime, has continued to fall during the current double dips. State policies to reduce crime show great variation across countries and are therefore ill placed to explain the universal falls. In all Western nations private security in its manifold manifestations has expanded since the 1980s in response to increased losses from crime and increased fear of crime. Empirical evidence on the relationships between improved security and drops in motor vehicle theft, household burglary and crime on industrial sites suggests that improved security is the key driver of the ongoing drops in volume crime. The somewhat more relaxed attitude towards the threat of volume among the public, emerging from survey research, may eventually invite the beginning of a new crime epidemic.

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Further Reading

• “Self-limiting Crime Waves: the Impact of Responsive Securitization on Trends in Volume Crime”, by JAN VAN DIJK (Proceedings)