Mullica Township Police Department
Crime Prevention
Helping residents and businesses protect themselves at home, at work and in public.
What is crime prevention?
Most crime control has focused on what happens after an offense: investigation, arrest, prosecution, incarceration, probation and rehabilitation. Those after-the-fact efforts have not eliminated crime.
Crime prevention works before the fact. Rather than trying to change an offender’s behavior, it reduces the opportunity for a crime to happen in the first place. Treating crime only after it occurs is like treating polio only after someone has contracted the disease. Crime prevention is a systematic, effective strategy to reduce or eliminate that opportunity.
History of crime prevention
The principles of modern crime prevention can be traced through the history of police service. Great Britain is considered the father of modern policing and of crime prevention, though the idea did not emerge until the early nineteenth century.
Until then, action was taken only after a crime had been committed, and the main deterrent was swift and severe punishment. Crime was rampant, especially in cities, and streets were unsafe at any hour. Citizens were expected to do their part, which remains the first principle of crime prevention: public cooperation.
More from the Police Department
In an emergency, always call 911
Non-emergency police dispatch: 609-652-2037 · Routine business: 609-561-7600