Who endorses
Support in Canada
Considerable devotion to the question of crime prevention in Canada and across the globe has resulted in a number of official recommendations for enhancing community safety and reducing violence, crime and victimization.
In Canada, these include:
- Major Canadian Parliamentary Reports highlighting the need to lower rates of crime and victimization through strong national leadership and inter-governmental collaboration. Recommendations include re-allocating at least 5% of the criminal justice budget towards tackling risk factors associated with crime, for example;
- Canadian Policy Statements including the most recent Speech from the Throne, the official statements of national organizations such as the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, and the Canadian Council on Social Development, as well as the Departmental policy of Sécurité Publique Québec, and others;
- Selected Canadian Coroner's Reports focussed on preventing domestic violence against women; and
- Other Canadian Resources on crime prevention policy.
Support from around the world
A number of International Entities and Conferences have also produced official recommendations for crime policy with a focus on preventing crime before it happens. These include reports by the World Health Organization and United Nations crime prevention guidelines, and declarations from major international conferences on urban safety and crime prevention, some of which were led by Canada.
Support from economists
Crime can be prevented without any overall increase in costs. In fact, based on program evaluations, preventing crime before it happens is significantly more cost-effective than reacting to it through current policing, judicial, and especially correctional practices (Aos et al. 2001; Aos, Miller & Drake 2006; Waller, Sansfaçon, & Welsh 1999).