Citation

Corbett C. Crime Prev. Community Safety 2008; 10(1): 1-18.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2008, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group -- Palgrave-Macmillan)

DOI

10.1057/palgrave.cpcs.8150054

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Road crashes and road crime are huge international problems produced by global society's increasing dependence on motorized transport. To help reduce these crash and crime statistics, roads technology is rapidly developing to prevent the former and deter the latter. This technology largely works by vehicle surveillance, and as with surveillance technology used in other arenas of crime prevention, drawbacks and dangers go along with the safety- and security-enhancing aspects. This paper reviews some key emerging roads technologies, the theoretical concerns raised by them and how, through various theoretical frameworks, they could be explored by the discipline of criminology. It urges that the surveillance aspects of road crime prevention and the study of vehicle-related crime more generally would benefit from criminological consideration and be theoretically rewarding. Moreover, in view of the centrality of the roads in contemporary life and the extent of global harm caused there, it contends that criminology should engage with this terrain.

Keywords: roads technology, vehicle-related crime, crime prevention, surveillance