ABSTRACT

Situational crime prevention (SCP) focuses on changing situations in order to diminish crime and as such has less or no concern for offender background or characteristics. Within the tradition of the person-situation interaction, however, it has been argued that some offenders may be more sensitive than others for situational cues. In this chapter, we elaborate on this hypothesis by proposing a number of examples in which different offenders will react quite differently to situational changes. Examples are given for the case of stealing a bike and for the case of sexual assault. We reflect on how criminology could progress from these examples towards a general method of considering person-situation issues when contemplating SCP techniques.