ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an introduction to the Handbook of Crime Science. It describes the historical roots of crime science in environmental criminology, providing a brief overview of key theoretical perspectives, including crime prevention through environmental design, defensible space, situational crime prevention, the routine-activities approach, crime-pattern theory and rational-choice perspective. It sets out three defining features of crime science: its outcome focus on crime reduction, its scientific orientation, and its embracing of diverse scientific disciplines across the social, natural, formal and applied sciences.
