The theory was first brought to public attention when Edwin Sutherland debated whether crime was "historical" or "situational" (Preaux, 2015). Sutherland is often called the "father of American criminology" because of his research in criminology. For the offender, situational crime prevention causes crimes to require more effort, more risk, and reduces the reward the offender obtains (Preaux, 2015). The way it works is either to stop the person from committing the crime or to change their thoughts about committing the crime. With the advent of these new methods of crime prevention around the world, crime rates can be slowly reduced. Specific areas are usually addressed, usually the most problematic areas. According to the National Crime Prevention Council, the rate started at 52.3 incidents per 1,000 people in 1981 and declined until 2004 to 21.1 incidents per 1,000 people. (National Crime Prevention Council, nd) These figures reflect violent crimes such as murder, rape, robbery, etc. This is a major change and if you calculate this change it means that violent crime decreased by approximately 40% over the period of 2007. 23