There has to be a better way: place managers for crime prevention in a surveillance society

ABSTRACT

We live in a surveillance society. Often justified under the guise of government anti-terrorism activities, domestic crime reduction, or both, surveillance takes many forms, including closed-circuit television cameras, networked cameras, and facial recognition applications. There is also a range of alternative forms of surveillance, measures considered less of an imposition to privacy, civil liberties, and other personal freedoms. One example is place managers: employees who perform a surveillance function secondary to their employment duties (e.g., bus drivers, parking lot attendants, train conductors). This article reports on an updated systematic review of the effects of place managers on crime in public and private space. Following identification and screening of several hundred references, a total of six studies met the inclusion criteria. Findings indicate that place managers represent a promising situational technique for preventing crime. Future place manager interventions need to be guided by the rich body of theory on place management.

KEYWORDS:

• Place managers
• situational crime prevention
• surveillance society
• social costs
• systematic review

Acknowledgement

We wish to thank the journal editor and the anonymous reviewers for excellent comments.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Stephen Douglas

Stephen Douglas is a Ph.D. student in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Northeastern University. He was previously employed as a police officer in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. His research interests include assessments of police practice and situational crime prevention. Recent articles have appeared in Journal of Quantitative Criminology and Crime Prevention and Community Safety.

Brandon C. Welsh

Brandon C. Welsh, Ph.D., is a Professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Northeastern University and the Director of the Cambridge-Somerville Youth Study. His research focuses on the prevention of delinquency and crime and evidence-based social policy. He is the author or editor of 10 books, including The Oxford Handbook of Crime Prevention (Oxford University Press, 2014) and Experimental Criminology: Prospects for Advancing Science and Public Policy (Cambridge University Press, 2013).