Crime-prevention policies encompass a wide range of programs, interventions, technologies, and strategies. Unlike crime-control initiatives, which concentrate on reducing the impact of crimes that have already occurred, crime-prevention efforts work preemptively. Crime prevention in the United States originated in the wake of the historic rise in crime during the 1960s and with the public’s ensuing belief that the criminal justice system was failing to protect law-abiding residents and to punish or incapacitate (i.e., lockup) criminals. The widespread assumption that crime-control strategies were ineffectual led to the call for preventive options to supplement, complement, or supplant the traditional (largely reactive) anti-crime measures of the police, courts, and corrections.

The effects of criminal victimization can be long term and even life altering. Victims of violent crime can suffer ...