Crime prevention and crime control

1. Prevention and control distinguished

• Time. Control is reactive, after the offence; prevention is proactive, before it.
• Target. Control targets the individual offender; prevention targets situations, communities and groups at risk.
• Agencies. Control is the work of the criminal justice system: police, prosecution, courts, prisons. Prevention involves schools, families, local bodies, town planners, employers and welfare agencies as well.
• Measure of success. Control counts arrests, convictions and sentences; prevention counts crimes that did not happen, which is harder to measure.

The two overlap. Punishment deters others, so control has a preventive effect; that is the claim of general deterrence. Herbert Packer's two models of the criminal process capture the tension: the crime control model values speed and efficiency in repressing crime, while the due process model values the reliability of guilt-finding and the protection of the accused. Indian constitutional law, after Maneka Gandhi (1978), leans towards due process, which is why the State cannot rely on control alone and needs prevention.

2. Kinds of crime prevention programme

Criminologists classify prevention in two ways. By stage:

• Primary prevention: addresses the general population and the conditions that produce crime, such as poverty, unemployment, illiteracy and poor housing.
• Secondary prevention: targets groups or areas at higher risk, such as children in difficult circumstances, school drop-outs, crime hot spots.
• Tertiary prevention: works with known offenders to stop reoffending: probation, parole supervision, after-care and rehabilitation.

By method:

• Situational prevention: reduce opportunity by making crime harder or riskier: lighting, locks, CCTV, design of public spaces, cash-less transactions. It draws on rational choice and routine activity theory (Cohen and Felson, 1979): crime needs a motivated offender, a suitable target and the absence of a capable guardian.
• Social or developmental prevention: tackle the root causes through education, family support, employment schemes and de-addiction; the “penal substitutes” that Ferri proposed.
• Community prevention: involve residents through neighbourhood watch, beat constables, community policing, mohalla committees and village defence parties.
• Legal or deterrent prevention: preventive provisions in law, visible policing and certainty of punishment.

3. Preventive powers in the BNSS

The Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 keeps the preventive chapters of the old Code.

• Security for keeping the peace and good behaviour: section 125 (old 106) on conviction; section 126 (old 107) where a breach of the peace is likely; section 127 (old 108) for disseminating seditious or objectionable matter; section 128 (old 109) for suspected persons concealing their presence; section 129 (old 110) for habitual offenders.
• Preventive action of the police (Chapter XII): section 168 (old 149), every police officer may interpose to prevent, and shall prevent to the best of his ability, any cognizable offence; section 169 (old 150), information of a design to commit a cognizable offence must be passed on; section 170 (old 151), arrest to prevent the commission of a cognizable offence where it cannot otherwise be prevented; section 171 (old 152), prevention of injury to public property.
• Public order: unlawful assemblies, public nuisance and urgent orders under section 163 (old 144).

These powers sit uneasily with Article 21 when used to detain without trial, so courts insist that they be used only where the statutory conditions exist and not as a substitute for prosecution.

4. The police in prevention and control

The legal functions of the police under the criminal justice system fall on both sides of the line. On the control side: registration of FIRs (section 173 BNSS), investigation, arrest, search and seizure, and filing the police report. On the prevention side: patrolling and beat duty, surveillance of habitual offenders, intelligence gathering, preventive arrest and security proceedings, traffic and crowd management, and community policing. The National Police Commission (1977–81) and the Supreme Court in Prakash Singh v. Union of India (2006) both pressed for separating investigation from law-and-order duties, so that neither is neglected.

5. Prevention of juvenile crime

Juvenile delinquency is the area where prevention matters most, because a child drawn into crime early tends to stay in it. The measures are:

• Family and school: the strongest protective factors; programmes against drop-out, child labour and substance abuse.
• The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015: it separates children in need of care and protection, dealt with by Child Welfare Committees, from children in conflict with law, dealt with by Juvenile Justice Boards. The approach is rehabilitative: diversion, counselling, community service and placement in special homes rather than prison. A child in conflict with law cannot be sentenced to death or to life imprisonment without the possibility of release (section 21). For a heinous offence by a child aged sixteen to eighteen, the Board makes a preliminary assessment (section 15) and may transfer the case to the Children's Court. The details are in the BNSS note on the JJ Act.
• Non-institutional care: sponsorship, foster care and after-care under the same Act.
• Community and police measures: Special Juvenile Police Units and child welfare police officers at every police station.

The UN instruments on the subject are the Riyadh Guidelines (UN Guidelines for the Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency, 1990) and the Beijing Rules (UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Administration of Juvenile Justice, 1985). Both stress that labelling a young person as delinquent can itself contribute to further offending.

How this is examined

“Discuss the kinds of programmes which are adopted in crime prevention programmes” (February 2025, 10 marks); “Crime prevention” (August 2024, short note); “Prevention of juvenile crime” (February 2025, short note); and, under Unit III in August 2024, “Explain the legal functions of police under the Indian criminal justice system”. The syllabus phrase is “difference between crime prevention and control”, so make section 1 the opening of any essay in this area. For the police question, use section 4 as the frame and the BNSS sections in section 3 as the authority.