NÚMERO DE TALLOS, MATERIA SECA DE TALLOS Y RAÍCES

The key concepts in situational crime prevention, according to Gilling (1997:182), are opportunity and physical environment. SCP is described as those interventions designed to prevent the occurrence of crimes, especially by reducing opportunities and increasing risk. It is however argued that crime displacement considerably weakens the

effectiveness of SCP measures, for while crime rates may decrease in the area where situational projects have been undertaken, they might increase in other areas where

these measures are not present. The most common criticism of SCP is that it does not solve the problem of crime but merely displaces crime (Geason & Wilson 1988:7). An SCP approach may therefore result in that the criminal tries again, there or somewhere else, or turns to another type of crime.

Participant 10 explained the phenomenon by means of the following example: “In one such case we concentrated on theft of cables on a specific mine. We involved the SAPS, prosecutors and other law enforcement agencies in that specific area. We arrested criminals, achieved good sentencing in that area from the courts after aggravating evidence was given. We closed illegal scrap dealers down. We prosecuted scrap dealers not adhering to specific Acts. We held surprise road blocks in areas near scrap dealers with good results. We then monitored the theft of copper in the other areas around this specific mine and it become evident that the criminals moved to the other mines in the area.”

Participant 5 even stated that it is important to evaluate the crime prevention strategy by “trying to be one step ahead of competitors in the same vicinity, as criminals will then rather target them”.

Barnes (1995:96-97) stated that crime may be displaced when offenders are prevented from committing one crime and simply shift their manner of offending in some way so that they may replace the prevented opportunity with another unlawful act.

Participant 7 shared the experience that “with the improvement and hardening of targets, the criminal tends to shift focus to more soft targets”. Participant 11 pointed out that “when the preventative measures overcome the resolve of the criminal, he will shift his attention to another type of crime, or location, target or time”.

Although displacement of crime may be minimal, conclusive proof of the phenomenon is extremely difficult to obtain because displacement can in theory take so many different forms (Ratcliffe & Makkai 2004:5).

In the above regard, Participant 4 expressed the opinion that “crime displacement is the strategy that professional criminals use to misdirect or mislead the law enforcers to focus on wrong and non- profitable and/or valueless crime prevention strategies”. For example, copper cable may not be secured around the mine area, resulting in the security personnel having to focus more on potential recoveries “while white collar crime is happening in the back yard”. It is therefore, according to Participant 4, important to “always focus on crime in general, be risk driven and question any situation that is happening in your surrounding as why it is happening in this way. Is it a general norm, is it permissible by law, why just a sudden change? Why by this specific person/s. Know your area, geographically factors, environmentally factors, cultural influences, community interactions, etc.” Felson and Clarke (1998:25) classify the types of crime displacement that could occur when a crime is prevented:

 Crime can be moved from one location to another (geographical displacement).  Crime can be moved from one time to another (temporal displacement).

 Crime can be directed away from one target to another (target displacement).  One method of committing crime can be substituted for another (tactical

displacement).

 One kind of crime can be substituted for another (crime type displacement). Participant 6 provided an example of how the evaluation of crime displacement forms part of the participating mine‟s crime prevention strategy, stating: “We have experienced this first hand. As target-hardening techniques and other crime prevention measures were implemented in the high-risk area, the threat just moved to our low-risk area as it was too difficult to succeed with criminal activities in the high-risk area. Security measures and process flows were addressed in the low-risk area as well. The fact that crime displacement can occur on site forms part of our crime prevention strategy – in other words the scope of addressing the threat is broadened to accommodate the possibility of crime displacement.”

The threat of crime displacement has created more concern than any other externality associated with preventive strategies (Mikos 2006:20-21). Displacement of crime is thought to lack any socially redeeming value. To understand why, consider the worst- case scenario called “total displacement”, that is, every crime that is prevented against a precaution taker is instead committed against someone else; the overall crime rate is therefore left unchanged. The losses suffered by the victims of displaced crimes cancel out the gains acquired by precaution takers. Furthermore, precaution takers have spent resources, but to no societal benefit. The conventional wisdom thus concludes that prevention strategies that do nothing but shift crime are necessarily wasteful, from a social point of view.