Issue addressed: Although health promotion and crime prevention have been brought together to address specific social ills, such as illicit drugs and road trauma, there is little literature that seeks to lift the connections between the fields of health and justice to a more general level.
Methods: The present paper explores the synergies between health promotion and crime prevention by considering a range of parallels between them.
Results: Health promotion and crime prevention can be shown to have several parallel interests, agendas, systemic locations and shared population foci, indicating a potential for more conscious engagement between each field.
Conclusion: There are a range of synergies, parallels and shared interests that crime prevention and health promotion share. These fields could develop more supportive networks with each other. So what? There is scope for those who champion both crime prevention and health promotion to align more readily in activities of public policy, academia and practice. In addition, the two fields and their advocates could be more supportive of each other in progressing agendas of social equity. Health promotion practitioners could consider seeking to extend their employment and opportunities by being aware of projects, employment and relationships outside of health in the field of crime prevention.