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Dive into the research topics where Ronald V. Clarke is active.

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Featured researches published by Ronald V. Clarke.


Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency | 2012

Are Parrots CRAVED? An Analysis of Parrot Poaching in Mexico:

Stephen F. Pires; Ronald V. Clarke

Poaching significantly contributes to the endangerment of protected wildlife but has rarely been studied by criminologists. This study examines whether CRAVED, a general model of theft choices drawn from routine activity and rational choice theory, can help to explain parrot poaching. It correlates estimates of the numbers poached for the 22 species of Mexican parrots with measures of CRAVED components (concealable, removable, available, valuable, enjoyable, and disposable). Widely available species and those whose chicks are easily removable from the nest are more commonly poached, a pattern suggesting that most poachers are opportunistic villagers. More valuable/disposable and more enjoyable species are rarely taken because few remain in the wild after being heavily poached for export in the 1980s. Apart from helping to explain parrot poaching and consider conservation options, the application of CRAVED suggested a possible contribution to understanding theft choices. This was that “abundant” and “accessible” might replace “available.”


Crime and Justice | 1992

Auto Theft and Its Prevention

Ronald V. Clarke; Patricia M. Harris

Auto theft makes a substantial contribution to the crime statistics of the United States. Eleven percent of all Uniform Crime Report index crimes in 1989 and 12 percent of crimes reported in the Victim Risk Supplement to the National Crime Survey comprised thefts of and from vehicles. Auto theft is even more prevalent in other developed countries, particularly when theft rates are calculated per vehicles registered. Marked urban/rural and intercity variations are only partly explained by variations in overall levels of crime or in the availability of vehicles. Many thefts involve cars parked in the street at night, and automobile models vary greatly in their vulnerability to theft. Auto theft has not increased more than other important property crimes in the United States during the last thirty years but may have come increasingly under the domain of more adult, organized offenders. Even so, thefts for temporary use and joyriding outnumber professional thefts by at least two to one. In turn, these forms of auto theft are outnumbered by thefts from vehicles (including components) by about five to one. The most promising preventive approach is through the manufacture of more secure vehicles. Improved documentation of ownership and environmental modifications at parking lots might also yield some gains.


Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health | 1987

Toxicity of car exhausts and opportunity for suicide: comparison between Britain and the United States.

Ronald V. Clarke; David Lester

The rate of car exhaust suicides in the United States has declined following the introduction of emission controls in the mid-1960s, though not as much as the decline in CO emitted by cars. In Britain, where emission controls have not been introduced, the rate of these suicides, initially much lower than in the United States, has greatly increased since the beginning of the 1970s and is now about double that of the United States. This rise cannot be explained simply on the basis of an increase in the opportunities for suicide as represented by an increase in the number of cars but may be due to increased knowledge of the method. While these results are interpreted as generally supporting the potential for opportunity-reducing preventive measures, they also demonstrate that much more research is needed into the complex nature of the opportunity structure for suicide.


Archive | 2009

Situational Crime Prevention: Theoretical Background and Current Practice

Ronald V. Clarke

Situational crime prevention is quite different from most other criminological approaches to crime control. Proceeding from an analysis of the settings giving rise to specific kinds of crime or disorder, it seeks to introduce discrete managerial and environmental changes that will reduce the opportunities or incentives for crime. Thus, it is focused on the settings in which crimes occur, rather than on those committing criminal acts. It does not try to eliminate criminal tendencies by arresting and sanctioning offenders or by improving society or its institutions. Rather, it seeks to make crime less attractive and it operates, not through the criminal justice system, but through a host of public and private organizations and agencies – schools, hospitals, transit systems, shops and malls, manufacturing businesses and phone companies, local parks and entertainment facilities, pubs and parking lots – whose products, services, and operations spawn opportunities and incentives for a vast range of different crimes. Felson (2002) describes the main sources of these opportunities and incentives, some of which are summarized in Table 14.1 under the five categories of criminogenic products, poor management, poorly designed buildings and places, “leaky systems,” and criminogenic laws. Researchers in the Home Office Research Unit, the British government’s criminological research department, formulated situational prevention nearly 30 years ago (Clarke, 1980). It was originally thought to be applicable only to “opportunistic” property offenses, such as car theft vandalism and burglary. Quite soon, however, it was applied successfully to assaults, robberies,


Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency | 2014

Explaining High-Risk Concentrations of Crime in the City: Social Disorganization, Crime Opportunities, and Important Next Steps

Anthony A. Braga; Ronald V. Clarke

The empirical observation that a small number of micro places generate the bulk of urban crime problems has become a criminological axiom. Explanations for the persistence of high-crime places have traditionally drawn upon opportunity theories of crime. In a new book, Weisburd, Groff, and Yang suggest that social disorganization could also be a powerful explanation for the uneven distribution of crime within neighborhoods. In this article, we explain briefly why their empirical work considerably sharpens knowledge about crime concentrations in the city. We then offer a critique of their conclusions concerning the relative contributions of social and situational variables in explaining crime hot spots and the preventive implications they draw from these findings. Finally, we suggest new research that could invigorate the debate on the formation and persistence of high-crime places and could support interventions that seek to change the situational precipitators and facilitators of crime.


Social Science & Medicine | 1994

Preventing suicide on the London underground

Ronald V. Clarke; B. Poyner

A field study was carried out to investigate the possibility of preventing suicide on the London Underground. Four groups of potentially valuable measures were identified with the objectives of: (i) reducing public access to the tracks; (ii) improving surveillance by station staff; (iii) facilitating emergency stops; and (iv) reducing injury. These strategies are discussed.


Social Science & Medicine | 1989

Suicide and increased availability of handguns in the United States

Ronald V. Clarke; Peter R. Jones

During the 25 years between 1959 and 1984, the suicide rate in the United States increased from 10.5/100,000 to 12.4/100,000. The increase was confined to those suicides using a firearm, which had reached 58.5% of the total by the end of the period. At the same time, there was a marked increase in the household ownership of handguns (but not of shotguns and rifles). The present study investigates whether the increase in suicide might be due to the increase in the ownership of handguns. Regression analyses showed a strong relationship between handgun ownership and the rate of gun suicides, but not between handgun ownership and the overall rate of suicide. These results support the hypothesis that the rise in handguns has led to an increase in gun suicides, but, they do not permit a choice between two further competing hypotheses: (i) that more people are now committing suicide because there are more handguns available or, (ii) that people who would otherwise have killed themselves in some different way are now using guns. Because of the potential implications for prevention, further study of these issues is needed.


Archive | 1989

Crime Specialisation, Crime Displacement and Rational Choice Theory

Derek B. Cornish; Ronald V. Clarke

Criminological explanation has an important, if not always well recognised, role to play in the construction of effective crime control policies. In this context, the assumption behind many traditional accounts, that crime is the expression of the offender’s personality and attitudes, has been particularly influential. Indeed, it reflects a bias towards dispositional thinking which appears as endemic to theorising about crime as it is to theorising about human behavior in general (Ross, 1977). Just as such dispositional assumptions once fuelled the rehabilitative ideal, now in consequence of its apparent failure they underpin the increasing advocacy of “social” crime prevention — that is, those measures which attempt to ameliorate the social, educational, economic and community disadvantages thought to be responsible for the creation of criminal attitudes and values (Clarke & Cornish, 1983).


Crime Science | 2012

Opportunity makes the thief. Really? And so what?

Ronald V. Clarke

BackgroundThis paper describes the work undertaken over many years by the author and colleagues concerning the role of opportunity in crime. The work began in the early 1970s in the Home Office Research Unit, the British government’s criminological research department.DiscussionsThe work supported a preventive approach – situational crime prevention – that was highly contentious in the criminology of the day because it sought to reduce opportunities for crime, rather than to modify offender propensities. Critics claimed that situational crime prevention would displace rather than reduce crime because they assumed that opportunity merely determines the time and place of crime, but does not cause it.SummaryThis paper describes the difficulties in establishing that opportunity is cause of crime and why this took so long. It reviews the research that was undertaken to this end, and it summarizes the benefits for criminology and crime policy of accepting that opportunity does cause crime.


Crime and Justice | 2003

International Trafficking in Stolen Vehicles

Ronald V. Clarke; Rick Brown

For many years, trafficking in stolen cars seemed largely to be confined to the Americas, with an estimated 200,000 cars per year flowing from the United States to Mexico and Central and South America. Trafficking in stolen cars is now a worldwide phenomenon. Perhaps half a million or more cars each year are transported from developed to less developed nations, hidden in containers or driven across national borders. Because vehicle trafficking causes less personal harm than other transnational crimes, governments have given it little priority. However, a recent spate of policy efforts has focused on identification and repatriation of stolen vehicles. Further development of policy would be assisted by a modest investment in research. This could produce detailed information about the methods used by criminals, provide more information about the involvement of immigrants, and yield improved measures of trafficking. The availability of comprehensive government and industry data makes this transnational crime a promising field of research.

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David Lester

Richard Stockton College of New Jersey

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Derek B. Cornish

London School of Economics and Political Science

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Mangai Natarajan

John Jay College of Criminal Justice

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John E. Eck

University of Cincinnati

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Rob T. Guerette

Florida International University

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Nick Tilley

University College London

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