While much of the popular messages received via the mass media indicate a movement toward simplification, the study and practice of crime prevention and community safety cannot escape its inherent complexity. The author of the chapter, who is also the editor of the book, comments on the many approaches to crime prevention as well as the many approaches to evaluating the outcomes of prevention efforts. Crime prevention has been classified in many varied ways in the research literature, such as “primary,” “secondary,” and “tertiary” crime prevention versus “situational,” “community,” and “developmental” crime prevention. Other issues adding to the complexity of crime prevention efforts are identified as cultural values, ethical concerns related to human rights, social structural conditions, and the aesthetics of a fortress built in response to fear of crime, among others. Some of the main criticisms of crime prevention efforts are discussed, such as the “hydraulic” view of crime prevention that states there are many types of prevention efforts that simply displace crime. Many contend, in this vein, that crime prevention efforts should focus on the underlying causes of crime if they are to actually realize a decrease in crime rates. Following the discussion of the complexity of crime prevention and community safety, the author introduces the five main sections of the book and comments that the main purpose of the book is to bring some order to the ideas and activities involved in crime prevention and community safety. The chapters mainly focus on the problems of volume property crime, violence, criminality, drugs, and fear of crime, the crimes that have “mattered most” for policy and practice. References