BASIC KNOWLEDGE OF SECURITY BY YASIR YAQUB ALHASSAN

BASIC KNOWLEDGE OF SECURITY

BY

YASIR YAQUB ALHASSAN

Department of Sociology (Criminology and Security Studies),Faculty of arts and social science, Federal University Dutse, Ibrahim Aliyu Bye-Pass P.M.B. 7156, Jigawa State, Nigeria

INTRODUCTION

Security challenges have faced human thought history as such the need for security reseated from many threats .such as natural disasters hazard and criminality. Security is an aspect of threat.

In ever society today both government and the citizen of a country, security is the degree of resistances to or protect from the harm, if applies to any vulnerable and land valuables asset, such as a person, dwelling community, item, nation or an organization. In ever society today both governmental and nongovernmental need to be seceded.

According to stream [2008].security is part of history and change because with advancement I sciences and technology comes a burst in productivity in organization and industrialization which is clear signal of increased population with different outturns.

Security can also be regarded as a change as a result of sciences and technology which bring about advancement   in population.

They more dynamic a society they more insecurity will be in that society

In this situation where such are lacking of insufficient, it becomes an indicator of insecurity.

Criminology is a displine, is the subject associated with safety in condition, business and in tractions, they society with retrogress which bring us to the understanding of two concept

THREAT AND HAZARD

THREAT

According to Mariam [2008] threat is an expression of interest to inflict evil or damages it is also a deception of danger warning and unpleasant situation. it is a product of intention of determination to harm or to create fear to another individual. For example BOKO HARAM, in Nigeria and ISIS in the Middle East and others country in the world.

HAZARD

Hazard is a source of danger, a chance even or accident. Hazards are unknown and unpredicted natural phenomena that occurs as a result of human or natural disaster .for example industrial explosions, nuclear reaction etc. Some of the natural deserter are flood land, earthquake etc.

SECURITY

They concept of security was first use in popular English literature sometime within the period of 1050AD,

SECURITY originated from Latin word call ‘’secure’’ by the meaning security in an encompasses the methodology and strategist to protect people access, building and operation at business in solution and organization [website, 2008]

Security may be come lean or national home learn security meaning domestic protect civil defense and emergency proffered the next and protect in of infrastructures.

 Under the private sector, security of property can be a clitoral that is given, dismasted at plunged to guarantee and obligation of payment debt

They term ‘security’ is common to the financial and investments industry representing financial out living

THE VALUE OF SECURITY 

The security is value by individual, family sate and other place. Security however   is not the only thing that value but also their  value to society .there are three approach that sick to answer such question ;-these approach are as follows ;--

1.      THE PRIME VALUE APPROACH

2.      THE CORE VALUE APPROACH

3.      THE MAGINAL VALUE APPROACH

THE PRIME VALUE APPROACH

The approach is saying, security is the highest value of anything like;-money, food, shelter, hearth, marriage, religion, family, clothing etc.  and is telling outs how life well be without security

THE CORE VALUE APPRUACH

They approach is saying  that, that there are another value but security is among the core value .they value that are always mare important than the other value .and they approach cannot justify allocation any rescues what so ever is the pursuit of noncore value.

MAGINAL VALUE THE APPROACH

This approach is they only one that provides a solution to the only one that allocation problem .it is not based on security to all actor in all situation in send. it is rooted in the assumption that they law of diminution marginal utility .is say that security is among the thing that value but after security then the can go to other sectors like education, heath etc.  

FORMS OF DIMENSION OF SECURITY

This is they considered imperative any even country. [W.H.O1992] it can WALFERS [1972] Argued that security is the multidimensional concept they resolves around various aspect of individual life .examples are as follows:--

1.      FOOD SECURITY

2.      HEALTH SECURITY

3.      PERSONAL SECURITY

4.      TERITORIAL SECURITY

5.      ECONOMIC SECURITY

6.      ENVIROMENTAL SECURITY

7.      COMMINITY SECURITY

8.      INFORMATION SECURITY

FOOD SECURITY:-be define as a situation in which majority of people in a country have access to food of adequate quality and quality consistent with decent existence at all time. If there is availability of food then the country has food security and if there is not then there is food insecurity.

HEALTH SECURITY:-is another form of security that is vital to the security

PERSONAL SECURITY:-this focus of an individual in the society for the attack every person has his own security.

COMMUNITY SECURITY: - this focus on the community and they society .ever society has to be secure.

TERRITORIAL SECURTY: - in ever territory have to be sovereignty.

                         SECURITY METHODOLOGY

The concept refers to the study of method principles and postulates applied by the security discipline are;-- 

1.      THEAORIES

2.      CONCEPTS

3.      IDEALS

4.      PHYLOSOPHY

5.      SECURITY STRATEGIES

 A strategies is a develop forms of the method but they popes of the strategy  is to be  focus on application of human resources  and managing ,management ,information technology, managing physical security, managing political and procedures, emergencies responses and recovery ,investigation as well as optima urtication and advancement . Some of the basic objectives are:-

1.      DETERRENCE

2.      DETECTIONS

3.      DESERTION

4.      DELAY

5.      DENIAL

6.      MITIGATION AND RESPONSE

Theories

Crime Opportunity theory is a theory that suggests that offenders make rational choices and thus choose targets that offer a high reward with little effort and risk. The occurrence of a crime depends on two things: the presence of at least one motivated offender who is ready or willing to engage in a crime, and the conditions of the environment in which that offender is situated, to wit, opportunities for crime. All crimes require opportunity but not every opportunity is followed by crime. Similarly a motivated offender is necessary for the commission of a crime but not sufficient. A large part of this theory focuses on how variations in life-style or routine activities affect the opportunities for crime (Hindelang, Gottfredson, and Garofalo 1978; Cohen and Felson 1979; Cohen, Felson, and Land 1980).

Opportunity thus becomes the limiting factor that determines the outcome in environments prone to crime because the offender generally has little or no control over the conditions of the environment, and the conditions that permit particular crimes are often rare, unlikely or preventable.

Routine activities

The idea that daily activities create the convergence in time and space of the three elements necessary for a crime to occur: motivated offenders, suitable targets, and the absence of capable guardians. The theory argues that available opportunities are an important component in the crime calculus. Choices in lifestyle on the part of potential victims may create or curtail crime opportunities for the motivated offender.

Rational choice

The rational choice perspective tries to understand crime from the perspective of the offender. It is directly concerned with the thinking processes of offenders, how they evaluate criminal opportunities, why they decide to do one thing rather than another, and why they choose to obtain their ends by criminal and not legal means. This perspective has helped to explain why displacement does not always occur and has helped develop different ways to reduce opportunities for crime (Cornish and Clarke, 1986; Barnes, 1995).

Situational crime prevention through environmental design

According to criminologist C. Ray Jeffery, crime results partly from the opportunities presented by physical environment there for it is possible to alter the physical environment so that crime is less likely to occur. He argues that sociologists overstated the social causes of crime, and neglected both biological and environmental determinants. Situational Crime Prevention introduces discrete managerial and environmental changes to reduce the opportunity for crimes to occur. It is focused on the settings for crime and seeks to predict the occurrence of crime. It suggests that much offending can appropriately be viewed not simply as the product of deep social, economic, and psycho-logical causes but also as the result of deliberate choices by individuals. Therefore, by making criminal action less attractive to offenders, criminal behavior can be curved.

Critical developments

Since its conception, the opportunity theory has received much analysis, criticism, and reform. Through research and experimentation the theory has been improved by several different scholars each emphasizing their own ideas. Some of those ideas are stated below:

• A criminal act does not, however, result simply and inevitably from the presence of a criminally disposed individual. The conditions for crime must be right in terms of such situational factors as the availability of a vulnerable target and an appropriate opportunity (Clarke 229).
• The life-style or routine activities of people alter the opportunity structure of crime, thereby explicitly influencing crime. High victimization rates of certain social categories can be explained by their choice of routine activities. Changes in routine activities in recent years (e.g., away-from-home travel, single-person households, and labor-force participation of both spouses) leave a high percentage of homes unattended during the day and night and place people in relatively unguarded environments (Cohen and Felson 1979).
• A critical development of the crime opportunity theory is that crime itself breeds crime. One way this happens is that one person victimizes another who then victimizes a third person, and so on. This is called a Van Dijk chain, named after the Dutch criminologist who has studied victimization and helped formulate the crime opportunity theory.

Empirical support

There have been several studies conducted both inside and outside of the United States that illustrate the importance of opportunity in crime. See for example, "The Role of Opportunity in Crime Prevention and Possible Threats of Crime Control Benefits".

Suicide trends

In England and Wales during the 1960s and 1970s opportunity proved to be a strong and surprising component in suicide trends. In 1958 almost 50 percent of the nearly 5,300 people who killed themselves in England and Wales did so by domestic gas. During the 1960s, domestic gas began to be manufactured from oil rather than from coal making it less poisonous. Consequently, the number of people killing themselves with gas began to decline. By the mid-1970s when natural gas had been introduced throughout most of the country, less than one percent of suicides were by domestic gas, compared with about 50 percent at the beginning of the period. Suicides did not displace wholesale to other methods. Between 1968 and 1975, total suicides dropped by about one third from nearly 5, 300 to nearly 3, 700. This was during a time of much economic uncertainty when one might have expected suicides to increase and, indeed, was generally increasing in other European countries. The reason people not turn to other methods of suicide is that all other methods have disadvantages not possessed by gas. It is dramatically more difficult to kill oneself with guns, pills overdose, or jumping out of a tall building because all these methods require courage and resolution. Lethal domestic gas, on the other hand, required little preparation and involved no pain. It is easy to understand why it was the favored method of suicide in Britain for so long. Nor is it so surprising that when the opportunity to use it was removed, the overall suicide rate declined (Clarke and Mayhew, 1988).

Motorcycle theft & Residential burglary

In Germany during the 1980s a study of motorcycle theft identified opportunity as its crucial element. The thefts of motorbikes had drastically declined from about 150,000 in 1980 to about 50,000 in 1986. This tremendous decline was the result of a new law passed in 1980 making it illegal to ride a motorbike in Germany without a helmet. The law was gradually enforced more strictly during the period and resulted in the large decline in motorcycle thefts. There is some limited evidence of displacement because between 1980 and 1983 thefts of cars went up from about 64,000 to 70,000 and the theft of bicycles also saw a noticeable increase. (Clarke, 1980:141) Altogether, it was clear that at best only a small proportion of the 100,000 motorbike thefts saved by the helmet laws were displaced to thefts of other vehicles (Mayhew et al., 1989). In the United States, a study was completed to investigate the dramatic increase in residential burglary during the 1960s and 1970s. A careful analysis by Lawrence Cohen and Marcus Felson (1979) showed that this increase was to a combination of two changes; temptation and opportunity. Temptation had been increased by the vast increase in light-weight electronic goods such as TV’s and VCR’s in people’s homes that could readily be sold. The opportunity to commit burglary was greatly increased as a result of far more women going out to work (Cohen and Felson 1979).

Van Dijk's chains

The criminologist Van Dijk noticed a typical pattern in the theft of bicycles that also emphasizes the role of opportunity. He observed that the victim of a bike theft would steal a bike from someone else to replace it. That victim would in turn steal a bike from another owner, and so on. Thus a single bicycle theft would have a multiplier effect, leading to several additional bicycle thefts. The chains could apply to the theft of any items with these four attributes: widely owned, necessary for daily use, easily taken, and sufficiently expensive (Dijk 1994).

Criticisms and theoretical questions

Although the crime opportunity is a useful tool for evaluating criminal environments, like any other theory there are numerous criticisms:

• The protection given to targets by using practical measures like locks and alarms simply displace crime to some other time or place
• No real improvements in levels of crime can be achieved without tackling root psychological and social causes
• If opportunities for certain kinds of crime are blocked, offenders simply resort to more violence or shift their energies to completely different and perhaps more intractable kinds of crime

Crime prevention implications

The opportunity theory has direct application to crime prevention. Concepts like problem-oriented policing, defensible space architecture, crime prevention through environmental design, and situational crime prevention seek to reduce opportunities for crime for particular kinds of targets, places, and classes of victims. Each is concerned with preventing very specific kinds of crime and none of the four attempts to improve human character. Most important, all four seek to block crime in practical, natural, and simple ways, at low social and economic costs.

Sixteen opportunity-reducing techniques have also been identified, falling under four objectives derived from rational choice theory: increasing the perceived effort of crime, increasing the perceived risks, reducing the anticipated rewards, and removing excuse for crime. Criminologist Ronald V. Clarke discusses twenty three studies that have documented the success of the use of these opportunity-reducing in his book, “Situational crime prevention: Successful case studies”.

CONCLUSION

Security is the most importance element in the earth.

Prime value approach; it said that security is the highest value of an individual for example food, money   clothing family etc.

Core value approach said that security is the core which means that security is importance and other value.

Methodology are  The concept refers to the study of method principles and postulates applied by the security discipline ,they meth A strategies is a develop forms of the method but they popes of the strategy  is to be  focus on application of human resources  and managing ,management ,information technology, managing physical security, managing political and procedures, emergencies responses and recovery ,investigation as well as optima urtication and advancement …delay etc. And some of the theories used Rational Choice, Routine Activities , Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED), Situational Crime Prevention, Crime Displacement . And some of the Categories Crime prevention ,Theories of law ,Psychology

References

http://www.personal.psu.edu/exs44/597b-Comm&Crime/Cohen_FelsonRoutine-Activities.pdf; and http://www.popcenter.org/learning/pam/help/theory.cfm

Jeffery, C. R. (1977). Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (Second Edition). Beverly Hills, CA.: Sage.

Clarke, R. V. (1997). Situational Crime Prevention: Successful Case Studies (Second Edition). Albany, NY: Harrow and Heston.

http://crimeprevention.rutgers.edu/topics/SCP%20theory/theory.htm

Dijk, Jan van (1994). "Understanding crime rates: On interactions between rational choices of victims and offenders". British Journal of Ciminology. 34: 105–121.

Özkan GÖK*(2011), "The Role of Opportunity in Crime Prevention and Possibe Threats of Crime Control Benefits", Turkish Journal of Police Studies Vol: 13 (1)

Cohen, Lawrence E.; Felson, Marcus; Land, Kenneth (1980). "Property Crime Rates in the United States: A Macrodynamic Analysis; 1947-1977; with ex ante forecasts for the 1980's". American Journal of Sociology. 86: 90–118. doi:10.1086/227204.

 Clarke, R. V. (1997). Situational Crime Prevention: Successful Case Studies (Second Edition). Albany, NY.: Harrow and Heston.

Barnes, G.C., (1995). Defining and Optimising Displacement. Crime and Place

Clarke, Ronald V. (1983). “Situation Crime Prevention: It’s Theoretical Basis and Practical Scope.” Crime and Justice 4: 225-256. Web. 2 December 2012.

Clarke, Ronald V. and Pat Mayhew. (1988). “The British Gas Suicide Story and its Implications for Prevention”. In Michael Tonry and Norval Morris (eds.), 1988. Crime and Justice: A Review of Research, Vol.10. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,

Clarke, R. V. (ed.). (1997). Situational Crime Prevention: Successful Case Studies (Second Edition). Albany, NY: Harrow and Heston. from http://www.popcenter.org/library/reading/pdfs/SCP2_front_matter.pdf

Cohen, Lawrence E. and Marcus Felson. (1979). “Social Change and Crime Rate Trends: A Routine Activity Approach. American Sociological Review 44: 588-608 from http://www.personal.psu.edu/exs44/597b-Comm&Crime/Cohen_FelsonRoutine-Activities.pdf

Cohen, Lawrence, Felson, Marcus & Land, Kenneth. (1980). Property crime rates in the united states: A macrodynamic analysis, 1947-1977; with ex ante forecasts for the mid-1980's." American Journal of Sociology 86, 90-118.

Cornish, Derek. B. and Ronald V. Clarke. (1986). The Reasoning Criminal. New York: Springer-Verlag. from http://www.popcenter.org/library/reading/PDFs/ReasoningCriminal/01_introduction.pdf

Dijk, Jan van. (1994). Understanding crime rates: On interactions between rational choices of victims and offenders. British Journal of Criminology Vol 34, Pages 105-121.

Felson, M. (2006). Crime and nature. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.

Hindelang, Michael, Gottfredson, Michael & Garofalo, James. (1978). Victims of personal crime: An empirical foundation for a theory of personal victimization. Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger.

Jeffery, C. R. (1977). Crime Prevention through Environmental Design. (Second Edition). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

Mayhew, Pat., Clarke, R. V., & Elliot, D. (1989). ' 'Motorcycle theft, helmet legislation and displacement ' '. Howard Journal of Criminal Justice 28: 1-8.

Warr, M. (2002). Companions in crime: The social aspects of criminal conduct. Cambridge University Press.