This article presents the first part of a study on crime-prevention and crime-control strategies in Usme, Bogota. This part develops the most important theoretical models on crime-prevention and security concept. The second part will present the case study developed in Usme, during Luis Eduardo Garzon’s administration as mayor. The guideline of the research was to find out the crime prevention strategies implemented in Usme during that time and their approach. The hypothesis is that political-criminal orientation of Usme’s strategies responded to the logic of social defense ideology, due to a restricted and limited concept of security drawn from its very opposite –insecurity-, which clearly refers security issues to what has been defined as “criminal”.