Operation Stop Gang Violence (OSGV)

Operation Stop Gang Violence (OSGV) aims to prevent gang violence through the use of situational crime prevention, which is rooted in routine activity theory. Situational crime prevention utilizes “discrete managerial and environmental” changes to reduce the opportunity for crimes to occur (Clarke 2). This strategy focuses on the location of the crime, rather than the reasoning behind it. Situational crime prevention arises out of routine activity theory, which states that crime occurs when a motivated offender, suitable target, and the absence of a capable guardian converge in space and time (Cohen and Felson 589). If one of these three elements is absent then a crime will not occur, according to routine activity theory. According to routine

Situational crime prevention “comprises opportunity-reducing measures that are directed at highly specific forms of crime, involve the management, design or manipulation of the immediate environment in as systematic and permanent way as possible, make crime more difficult and risky, or less rewarding and excusable as judged by a wide range of offenders” (Clarke 4). A major limit of this theory is the idea that situation crime prevention measures must be tailored to “highly specific categories of crime” (Clarke 4). This means distinctions must be made between various offenses falling under specific categories (Poyner & Webb 1991). Since specific forms of crime are carried out in specific ways, for situational crime prevention to be successfully applied to OSGV, specific measures would have needed to be taken. OSGV using iron gates to reduce traffic to gang-violent hotspots is not a specific strategy aimed at preventing a specific crime. The iron gates are being implemented to target a broad category of gang violence, rather than a specific gang crime like shootings. Due to the lack of specificity of the iron gates, situational crime prevention is limited in its