A reflection on Ronald V. Clarke: Honoring a "crime scientist" and an old friend

Geneva Park Conference Center, Orillia, Ontario. Site of the 1988 conference on Research Futures in Environmental Criminology. I invited Ron Clarke as a presenter - photo Unique Properties

by Gregory Saville

I want to share a short reflection on my old friend Ronald V. Clarke—known not just as a criminologist and recipient of the 2015 Stockholm Prize in Criminology, but as a pioneering crime scientist whose humanity, curiosity, and intellectual courage reshaped our understanding of crime and prevention.

Ron passed away on May 28, 2025, at the age of 84. His death marked the end of a life dedicated not merely to studying crime, but to reimagining how we can prevent it—not through punishment or psychology alone, but by redesigning our environments and systems.

It was Clarke’s co-authored 1976 paper, “Crime as Opportunity,” that truly turned the criminological world on its head. He urged us to stop fixating on criminals and instead look at the opportunities that allowed crimes to happen—changing the offense, not just punishing the offender. From better window locks and improved sightlines to dye-marked banknotes—his vision was pragmatic, grounded, and surprisingly effective. He’d say things like, “remove the opportunity and the crime collapses.” 

Ronald V. Clarke - Professor/Crime Scientist/Friend. Also interested in
preventing wildlife crime and poaching
- photo Benefunder

I first met Ron at a 1988 conference I sponsored at a conference center in Ontario overlooking Lake Couchiching. He had arrived in North America a few years earlier from his career at the UK Home Office, where he pioneered new studies on crime opportunity. I once told him I thought treating opportunity as a root cause of crime was a step too far, unsupported by the data. When he disagreed, it felt less like an admonition and more like a steady, hand guiding me back to the point.

I suspect he preferred “crime scientist” less for the scientific rigor in criminology —which remains limited—and more because the search for offender dispositions had done little to prevent crime. It was hard to argue that! Mainstream criminology often ignored his work and he expressed his frustration with big, elaborate statistical exercises when simple, real-life situational changes kept showing clear effects.

UK Home Office - London. Clarke headed a crime prevention unit for the British government prior to his tenure as Dean of Criminology at Rutgers University
- photo CC-SA 2.0 by Steve Cadman

Ron was also a leader in the practical application of theory. He served as head judge of the Herman Goldstein Problem-Oriented Policing Award—he was my head judge when I was serving as a judge on that program—and set a tone of rigor and fairness that inspired everyone on the panel. 

He was a featured speaker at the 1986 environmental criminology search conference, and he immediately latched onto the action research method that was at the core of our work (the search conference is an action research method). It was about the direct application of theory into practice. That idea became a throughline in his later work - as it had been in his UK work - and it is still a core value we honor today in SafeGrowth.

A LEGACY OF OPPORTUNITY

Ron’s legacy is subtle but profound: he showed us crime isn’t destiny—it’s often a product of ill-placed opportunities, overlooked context, and uninspired design. And by treating the environment as part of the solution, he gave cities, planners, and communities tools that work—without trials, without ideology, but with practicality and empathy.

I honored him by applying his situational insights during our project work on homelessness —believing that when we change the settings of homelessness, we shift the narrative away from fear and blame, toward safety and support. That felt like the truest tribute to his spirit: evolving his ideas with compassion, not just application. His insistence on translating research into real-world change is woven into the DNA of SafeGrowth’s global network today—every project, training, and innovation we advance carries a trace of Ron’s vision for theory in action. 

Thank you Ron, we owe you a debt.

Criminology's Nobel Prize 2015

The 2015 Stockholm Prize in Criminology - criminology equivalent of the Nobel Prize 

Imagine this:

...a large, white passenger van driven by an off-duty cop filled with some top criminologists recently arrived at the Toronto International airport. Destination? A conference retreat centre bathed in amber tinged autumn leaves on a lake in northern Ontario. Purpose? Gather world-renown criminologists, skilled practitioners and engaged community members in a unique search conference to explore new paths for crime prevention and environmental criminology.

It was 1988 and I was the driver. The conference was the final project in my master’s degree. My passengers included Ronald V. Clarke, dean of criminology at Rutgers University and Patricia Mayhew from the UK Home Office. Was I intimidated?

Duh!

This month Mayhew and Clarke won the 2015 Stockholm Prize in Criminology for their work creating situational crime prevention. Roughly equivalent to the Nobel Prize, the Stockholm Prize is the most prestigious criminology award in the world.

Grounds of retreat center north of Toronto - 1988 Conference in Research Futures in Environmental Criminology

A CONFERENCE RETREAT IN CANADA

The drive north in 1988 was the first time I had met Clarke and Mayhew (and most of the other scholars) and I was anxious to make a good impression. Even then they were giants in the field.

At one point I dropped them off briefly at what I thought was a regular restaurant to pick up more arrivals. On return I discovered, to my horror, my precious cargo was being lambasted by a hard rock band of the heavy metal variety bashing away on cymbals and electric guitars.

“You know,” said Clarke, barely audible with the roaring din behind us, “they are really quite good.” He added with a genuine smile, “This is some excellent rock!” Academic prestige, I learned from Clarke, does not require malignant egos.

Mayhew and Clarke's open hearted and non-pretentious manner helped make the conference a success (later published as Crime Problems, Community Solutions). They were truly exceptional people.

Ronald V. Clarke, co-winner of 2015 Stockholm Prize with Patricia Mayhew (photo not available)

SITUATIONAL CRIME PREVENTION

While Mayhew went on to co-develop the U.N. International Crime Victimization Survey I came to know Ronald Clarke professionally. Years later I presented him with the International CPTED Association's lifetime achievement award. We served as judges together on the Problem Oriented Policing Award Program (where, as Chief Judge, he was my boss). From Ronald Clarke I learned how a classy scholar does robust scholarship.

By pioneering situational crime prevention Mayhew and Clarke helped legitimize CPTED arguments at a time when, as Clarke writes, C. Ray Jeffery’s CPTED and Oscar Newman’s Defensible Space “were both given short shrift by criminological reviewers.”

Their Stockholm Prize is well deserved. Congratulations to them both.