International Journal on Criminology Volume 3, Number 2, Fall 2015 | Page 12

International Journal on Criminology
periods of expansion: more wealth, more consumption, and, as a result, more goods
vulnerable to theft and more money to spend on having a good time. Forty years
apart, they were also periods of greater moral freedom, euphoria, optimism, and a
weakening of informal social controls and policing.
1990–2013: Homicide Drop, Innovations in Policing and in Security Technology
In the 1990s and the first decade of the twenty-first century, homicides
declined (at the time of writing, we do not know whether this drop will continue).
During that time, Canadian homicide rates fell from 3 per 100,000 inhabitants in
1991 to 1.5 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2013. In the United States, the homicides drop
from 9 per 100,000 inhabitants in 1991 to 4 in 2013.
These falls in homicides are part of the “crime drop.” For a period of more
than twenty years, many types of property and violent crime declined in several
Western countries. This development led to a flurry of scientific studies (Blumstein
and Wallman 2000, 2006; Ouimet 2004, 2005, 2008; Zimring 2007, 2012; Van Dijk
2008; Van Dijk et al. 2012; Aebi 2004; Aebi and Linde 2014; Tonry 2014; Farrell et al.
2014; Rosenfeld et al. 2007; Messner et al. 2007; Cusson 2010, 2015).
Rational choice theorists have an explanation for this crime drop. In reaction
to the precedent growth of crime, security actors invested in situational crime
prevention making crime more risky for offenders, more difficult, and less profitable
(Felson 2002; Clarke 1983, 1995, 1997; Clarke and Newman 2006; Cusson 2010a,
2010b, 2015; Brantingham and Brantingham 1984; Van Dijk 2008, 2012; Ekblom
1999, 2004). This approach has been used to account for the drop in crime in New
York, Canada, the United States as a whole, and England and Wales.
In New York City, moves against high levels of crime were instigated by Mayor
Giuliani and his police chief, William Bratton, who concurred in making the fight
against crime a priority (Silverman 1999). Zimring (2007, 2012) has shown that in
New York City the actions that contributed most to declining crime were aggressive
and proactive policing that targeted crime hot spots localized by the Comp Stat
system. This strategy succeeded in driving down crime, especially gun homicide, in
the targeted sectors (Rosenfeld et al. 2007; Messner et al. 2007).
At the same time, innovations and improvements within police organizations
in Canada and the United States helped to reduce the crime rate of the 1990s and
2000s. State-of-the-art intelligence systems using computerized and increasingly
well-analyzed databases enabled police officers to take more targeted action. Problemoriented
policing spread across North America, enabling police organizations to find
tailor-made solutions, particularly in crime hot spots (Braga and Weisburd 2010).
The impact of these policing innovations was to achieve a greater deterrent effect
through more certain punishment, to disorganize and disarm criminal gangs, and
to settle numerous interpersonal conflicts that might have escalated without police
intervention (Cusson 2010, 2015).
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