Crime Prevention

Commissioned by the European Crime Prevention Network
(Specifications No IBZ/AD&VP/EUCPN/2018/ErvaEvaCP)

There are plenty of crime prevention initiatives being developed and executed by many different partners in the EU countries. Governmental institutions, the police, municipalities, private and public organizations and other social actors have an important role in preventing criminality, at a local level, and therefore altogether are contributing for making Europe a more safe community to live in. As more we move in the way of making our crime prevention work as of best quality as possible, more we have to deal with evaluation processes. After all evidence-based best practice is the aim when comes to crime prevention.

However, the methodology behind proper evaluation of crime prevention initiatives is sometimes complex and expert support might eventually not always be available. In this context, we developed the current project which has two main objectives:

(1) Gain insight into existing practices when it comes to the evaluation of activities aimed at crime prevention.
(2) Make recommendations to “best practices” on the evaluation of crime prevention activities based on the experiences in the MS.

By crime prevention activity, we mean all those initiatives and measures that “that seek to reduce the risk of crimes occurring, and their potential harmful effects on individuals and society, including fear of crime, by intervening to influence their multiple causes” (UN Resolution 2002/13 of the Economic and Social Council).

 We are recruiting participants among persons in EU countries who have been responsible for the development or execution of a crime prevention activity. The participation involves to answer an online questionnaire and, eventually, an interview in which a personal opinion about the process of evaluation can be offered.

We would like very much that you, who have been responsible for or actively working as a practitioner in a crime prevention activity in your country answer our questionnaire (please click the link) that has been translated to 24 European languages.

The research team

Dr. Teresa Silva.
Associate professor in criminology and head of the division of criminology since 2016. She is the project leader in the development of a comprehensive strategy to close down a street based drug market in the center of Sundsvall. She is actively working with the local authorities to develop future collaborations in crime prevention initiatives. She has been doing research since 2000 in different areas of knowledge using both quantitative and qualitative methods of study design, scientific inquiring and data analysis.

M.Sc. Mia Lind.
Lecturer in criminology at Mid Sweden University since 2013. She served as research collaborator in several research studies including the project Analysis of the illicit drugs market and related problems in Sundsvall. She has experience making quantitative and qualitative data collection in different populations and in different contexts.

Professor Jerzy Sarnecki.
Guest professor at Mid Sweden University, he has a long teaching and research career in criminology in several Swedish universities. He served first as researcher and after as head of the investigation division for the National Crime Prevention Council in Sweden from 1977 until 1993. From 2003 to the present, he has been member of the scientific council for the same institution. Furthermore, from 2001 until 2006 he was the Swedish representative for the EUCPN. For many long time he has been a member and chairman of various Swedish and international working groups in criminology and crime prevention.