What works, what doesn’t, and what is promising for preventing sexual violence and abuse: The effectiveness of situational prevention

This research project aims to address a major gap in the criminological literature by investigating the effectiveness of situational prevention techniques to prevent sexual violence and abuse from the offender’s perspective. The project will make a significant contribution to the scant evidence-base regarding how and under what circumstances situational prevention techniques function to discourage offenders from committing sexual offences. The theoretical framework driving this project includes a combination of the situational crime prevention (SCP) perspective and crime script analysis. A self-report questionnaire based on a crime script framework is administered to adult male sexual offenders incarcerated in Queensland. Other Australian states are in the process of participating in the project. Data analysis will focus on understanding sexual crime events, and determining what works, what doesn’t and what is promising for preventing sexual violence and abuse thus providing evidence-based knowledge on the effectiveness of situational prevention for the very first time.

Project Leader

Professor R Wortley (University College London); Dr Danielle Reynald (Griffith University); Professor Stephen Smallbone (Griffith University)

Project Team

Anna Stewart, Troy Allard, Susan Dennison, Steve Kisely, Carleen Thompson and Lisa Broidy

Research Assistants

Alana Cook (PhD Candidate); Chris Dowling (PhD Candidate); Dr Yi-Ning Chiu

Project Value

$379,000

Type of Funding

Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Project

Dates

2013-2016

Theme/s

Violence; Environmental Criminology and Crime Analysis; Developmental and Life Course Criminology and Prevention Science

Aims

  • To identify SCP that prevented offenders from completing an offence;
  • To identify SCP that were overcome by offenders during the offence and how this was the case;
  • To identify which hypothetical SCP are promising in order to prevent sexual offences;
  • To examine the impact and role of potential guardians during the offence;
  • To develop crime event prevention models that will guide prevention initiatives such as the implementation and evaluation of situational interventions