Multi‐Agency Crime Prevention: Some Barriers to Collaboration

Abstract

Abstract: This article considers some of the difficulties encountered by those seeking to develop a collaborative approach to the prevention of crime. It reflects on the vagueness and elasticity of the concept of crime prevention which, beyond the common sense appeal, encapsulates a variety of different and not necessarily complementary discourses. The multi‐agency approach seeks to force these discourses together, but the context of collaboration is such that certain discourses find themselves in a more privileged position, and others find it difficult to establish themselves