ABSTRACT
Police departments began to implement crime prevention programming in the 1980s and 1990s. The intensified interest in crime prevention was fueled primarily by problem solving, fear of crime, Wilson and Kelling's (1982) treatise on “broken windows,” and a realization that the police could not control crime without the assistance of the community. Problem solving represented a new mantra for policing. It represented a departure from routine preventive patrol to a philosophy whereby the police attempted to identify problems, especially concentrations of crime and disorder known as hot spots, and implement tactics to ameliorate the causes. It also emphasized thinking outside the box; that is, officers were encouraged to search for solutions that might be nontraditional in nature. This resulted in prevention becoming more important.
