I was interested to learn from the BBC that Leeds City Council are to spend £1.3m over four years to reduce the number of burglaries. I’ve just run a report on our Neighbourhoods page across all of England and Wales, between December 2010 and April 2011 and it’s true there’s a serious problem – the top 3 worst neighbourhoods (by total) for burglary are in Leeds. These are;
North West Leeds – North West Inner
It’s interesting one of the measures cited to combat burglary was spending on increased visibility. The other day, I was talking to a fellow policy wonk about a paper called “Designing out crime” a think tank paper that came out maybe about 30 years ago. Now of course, every English language police force seems to use the phrase so it’s buried. If someone can let me know where to find it, please let me know and I’ll link to and blog about it. We could even upload it to the site.
John Birkenshaw says:
I am the former head of West Yorkshire Police Crime Reduction Unit and therefore speak with some knowledge on the subject.
Designing out crime is a principle introduced many years ago and yes it is true to say that because the phrase is used so regular by the police AND because no one seems to explain what they mean.
YES it has become meaningless.
I must say that the individuals who are specialists in this area are truly committed to their work; they are called Architectural Liaison Officers (ALOs) and these days, usually work alongside planners in Council planning offices. Their role is to meet with architects and designers at an early stage to cast an eye over plans to ensure that they are not creating designs that will ‘attract’ or ‘generate’ crime. A good example of this the design of is a footpath at the back of a row of houses; where the designer is creating an opportunity for would be burglars to break into houses. It also looks at the area in general to see if there are other factors; i.e. car parking too far away from houses etc.
The principle of designing out crime also includes products, such as doors, windows, locks etc., under the Banner of ‘Secure By Design’ which was established in 1989, Secured by Design (SBD) is owned by the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) and is the corporate title for a group of national police projects focusing on the design and security for new & refurbished homes, commercial premises and car parks as well as the acknowledgement of quality security products and crime prevention projects.
Visit their web site at
http://www.securedbydesign.com/index.aspx
and also check:
http://www.securedbydesign.com/professionals/standards_testing.aspx
Contact your local police and arrange a visit with the ALO who will be please to speak to you and explain further the principles of Designing Out Crime.
Dan says:
Thanks for this John, very interesting and insightful. Sorry I didn’t see your comment earlier.