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National Initiatives / Design Against Crime

Under the broad title of Design Against Crime (DAC) there is work on the development and evaluation of projects aiming to influence industry and designers to produce more crime resistant designs before products are released onto the market. There are four projects ongoing within this area of work, in close collaboration with Department for Trade and Industry:

Designing for crime resistance – Design Council.
This is a project which aims to identify and implement strategies for increasing the contribution of design to crime reduction, by identifying constraints of awareness, knowledge and motivation in the design world

Student Design Awards – Royal Society of Arts.
The Crime Reduction Programme sponsors a crime reduction project brief in the Student Design Awards. This year’s briefs were for a secure door for the Internet home delivery age and a crime resistant mobile phone. The aim is to raise awareness of design for crime resistance among design students and their tutors.

Foresight Crime Prevention Panel – DTI/Office for Science and Technology.
This panel brings together a range of experts and focuses on how new technology might create new opportunities for crime and crime prevention.

Virtual reality for street lighting.
This project aims to develop techniques to use virtual reality (VR) to intelligently plan and design street lighting. Evaluation of this initiative will aim to establish whether the VR lighting design tool can cost-effectively reduce crime.

There is also work on the impact of housing design on crime. The two key projects in this area include an evaluation of the ACPO Secured By Design (SBD) housing estates in West Yorkshire (An evaluation of secure by design housing within West Yorkshire (2000) Rachel Armitage, Briefing Note 7/00) and a review of the evidence base and policy guidance relating to housing design and crime (not yet published).

Other work reaching beyond design centres on the development of a conceptual framework for crime reduction, the Conjunction of Criminal Opportunity, which is being developed in contexts ranging from Crime Reduction Toolkits to organised crime reduction.

Contact: Paul Ekblom, Mark Bangs, National Initiatives Section, Policing and Reducing Crime Section, Policing and Reducing Crime Unit, RDS, Home Office.

Last Updated: January 2001