12 January 2009 - As the newest addition to its Criminal Justice Handbook series, UNODC has launched the Handbook on Planning and Action for Crime Prevention in Southern Africa and the Caribbean Regions. Drawing on lessons from 40 crime prevention programmes, it explores the extent to which lessons can be drawn, and where evidence is lacking, this handbook seeks to identify suggestions for further action, either for research or experimentation.
The principal aim of the handbook is to serve as a reference tool to policymakers and practitioners engaged in actions to reduce the burden of crime on the poor. Moreover, the handbook intends to increase knowledge about levels of crime, successful practices in reducing crime rates in developing countries, and multi-actor crime prevention initiatives.
The handbook is part of the United Nations programme to strengthen cooperation among developing countries and to encourage crime prevention in the South. Several of the principles for successful crime prevention set in the United Nations guidelines for the prevention of crime have inspired the handbook's content:
- Crime prevention should enhance the rule of law
- It should serve socio-economic development and inclusion
- Evidence and not ideology must drive crime prevention
- Crime prevention should be community-centered
- Governments, civic and business communities should establish and foster partnerships among themselves
- Crime prevention should be developed and promoted on the basis of sustainability and accountability.
The handbook recommends policies and actions through which crime can be reduced and prevented and so hopes to inspire action by policy makers, practitioners, community groups and other key stakeholders.
---
Full text of the Handbook (pdf).
