International Journal on Criminology Volume 3, Number 2, Fall 2015 | Page 16

International Journal on Criminology
4. Contraction.
In phase 4, crime stabilizes at a relatively low floor. Crime remains stable during
a contraction because the security measures devised and implemented in preceding
phases are still in place. Prevention systems continue to provide protection and to deter
potential offenders. Moreover, security professionals retain the expertise they have
already gained.
However, all good things come to an end, and laxity sets in insidiously. There
are insufficient incidents, offenses, and crimes to warrant vigilance. A good security
system requires its professionals to be on the alert, but it becomes difficult to remain
vigilant when nothing is happening: it’s deadly dull. Private and public security experts
face no challenges, their skills are lost, some shut themselves away in the legalism of
bureaucracy, and others succumb to the temptations of corruption.
Security entails costs that seem increasingly prohibitive when crime is rare.
Security does not come free of charge. There are the costs of a competent workforce
and those of buying, installing, and maintaining security systems. Nonmonetary costs
must be factored in as well: endless surveillance, stringent checks, locked doors, false
alarms. All these waste time and are bothersome, irritating, and annoying. They earn
scrupulous security officers a reputation as pernickety and intolerant.
With tolerance, people become more aware of the drawbacks, inconveniences,
and dangers of “total security.” When there are fewer victims of crime, intolerant and
repressive attitudes cease to be appropriate. The call for security declines and is replaced
by calls for compassion, people are more easily moved by the sufferings of prisoners
than by those of their victims.
With fewer crimes, the cost-benefit ratio of security drops. There is a reluctance
to pay for personnel to twiddle their thumbs or for equipment that seems no longer
needed. Security seems detrimental to liberty. Encroachments into private life are
criticized. Checks and searches at airports and elsewhere become exasperating. The
specter of the “police state” is raised. Security loses its edge precisely because security
has prevailed. So the conditions for a new growth in crime are reestablished and we
return to the first phase or the cycle.
References
Aebi, Marcelo. 2004. “Crime Trends in Western Europe from the 1992 to 2000.”
European Journal of Criminal Policy and Research 10: 163–186.
Aebi, Marcelo, and Antonia Linde. 2014. “The Persistence of Lifestyles: Rates and
Correlates of Homicides in Western Europe from 1960 to 2010.” European
Journal of Criminology 11: 552.
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