Criticisms

What are the main criticisms of opportunity theories?

•Displacement

•Lack of interest in the offender and their motivations – ignoring of the aetiology (the study of causes) of crime

•Doesn’t ‘solve’ the problem of crime – just manages it (Miro 2014)

Moral legitimacy?

•Crime is distanced from structural inequalities or existential motivations

•Crime and crime control is reduced to a managerial problem (Hayward 2012)

If you put in CCTV, then the criminal may just move to another area – can be avoided.

Not a lot of theoretical depth in this perspective. 

What is the criticism of hotspot policing?

•Hotspot policing and marginalisation

•The over-policing of ethnic minority and working class areas

•Public vs. private space

•Can be implemented for “Zero Tolerance” policies (Garland 1999)

Working class more likely to hang out in public space therefore making them overpoliced – or at least more likely to be criminalised.

What is the criticism of hostile architecture?

Hostile Architecture (e.g. Raymen 2016)

The idea that you can not sit on benches, skateboarding and more broadly using a social space.

This creates social exclusion. 

What is the cultural criminological critique?

The cultural criminological critique (Ferrell et al. 2015, Hayward 2012)

•Lack of considering the complexity of human emotion and motivations

•What if ‘thrill-seeking’ is a central motivation? If it is thrill motivated- none of this will be able to be prevented.

What is the feminist critique?

Feminist critique

•Public vs. private space

•IPV? Sexual violence?

•Reinforcement of victim-blaming narratives

Claims that we can reduce sexual violence through this - blames the victim as it says that sexual violence can be prevented through opportunity theories.