Overview of Crime Prevention in the World

Since 2000 the United Nations has been promoting the “culture of prevention”, to which Member States made an advance contribution already in 1995, when the Economic and Social Council adopted first “Guidelines for cooperation and technical assistance in the field of urban crime prevention”(ECOSOC resolution 1995/9, Annex). With the follow-up adoption of “Guidelines for the Prevention of Crime” (ECOSOC resolution 2002/13, Annex), the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, which implements them in the United Nations system, has made a review of crime prevention trends in the world. The paper first informs on those trends captured in the report of the United Nations Secretary-General, and on the UNODC’s practical action to promote crime prevention globally and locally. Next, emphasizing as a major strategy to prevent youth delinquency and crime the trend toward the inclusion of youth-at-risk and to facilitate the reintegration of sentenced offenders, the paper informs about the respective UNODC crime prevention technical assistance projects and activities, also in the context of the preparations for two workshops at the Twelfth United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (Salvador, Brazil, 12-19 April 2010), namely on “Practical approaches to preventing urban crime” and “International criminal justice education for the rule of law”. The paper concludes with proposals for further international crime prevention action.